


Hermits Among Us Oneshots

by Vaunna



Category: Among Us (Video Game), Hermitcraft RPF
Genre: Non-Graphic Violence, Temporary Character Death
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-18
Updated: 2021-03-09
Packaged: 2021-03-13 20:07:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 18
Words: 26,153
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29531715
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Vaunna/pseuds/Vaunna
Summary: A collection of oneshots revolving around the Hermits/their friends in the world of Among Us. Will contain scenes based on actual moments from their videos plus scenes I make up. Will be very angsty.
Comments: 19
Kudos: 79





	1. Your Happy Ending

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Beans and Ren try to survive until the end

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A quick note: I do not ship Beans and Ren. I’m writing them how they were in the videos: flirty friends

When Grian pressed the emergency meeting button, he had no idea how many crewmates were left alive on the ship. But the amount of people who appeared at the meeting still shocked him.

“Oh, jeez!” Ren gasped, his eyes widening. “How are there only five of us left already?!”

“We have to vote someone here,” said Grian authoritatively. “Or we’re screwed. Who died last?”

“It must be Scar; I saw him about thirty seconds ago over by navigation,” said Bdubs. 

Grian nodded. “This should be pretty easy, then.”

“No, because we don’t know where Scar’s body is,” Etho pointed out. “Perhaps we should start by establishing where everyone was, then we can work it out by process of elimination.”

“Okay, then.” Grian fixed his friend with a hard stare. “Where were you?”

Etho appeared not to notice his tone. “I was in security, doing wires. After that, I have no more tasks. The emergency meeting interrupted me, though.”

Grian nodded slowly. “Alright. I was in communications, doing the download. Beans?”

“Cafeteria,” reported Beans. “Also doing wires.”

“I was doing fueling in the lower engine,” Ren chimed in. “But like Etho, I got interrupted so I need to go back there. ALONE, probably,” he added, shooting Beans a pointed look.

Beans snickered. “Don’t give me that look, Wolfie. I had a task in cafeteria, you had lower engine. We couldn’t stick together forever.” 

Ren gave an exaggerated sigh. “It’s like you don’t WANT our love to succeed, Beanie.”

“Can someone fill me in, here?” Grian asked impatiently. “What’s going on?”

“Oh, we gave each other nicknames,” explained Beans. “He’s Wolfie, I’m Beanie.”

Ren winked at Grian, who sighed amusedly. “Okay, can you two lovebirds account for each other’s movements?”

“Nope. Beanie here ran off without me.” 

“Because I had a different task!” protested Beans. “The faster we get our tasks done, the quicker we win. We can get together later once we’ve saved the ship.”

“I’d just like to point out something,” Grian said unexpectedly. “Bdubs, you’re usually one of the first to interrupt meaningless chatter but you’ve been strangely silent thus far. Almost as if you’re letting the others run out the clock.”

“What? No!” Bdubs snapped. “I was about to speak up. Anyway, in case you’re wondering, I was doing asteroids.”

Beans frowned in surprise. “No you weren’t. I was in cafeteria and when I looked around, I couldn’t see anyone in weapons.”

“Well, I don’t know when you looked but I was definitely there,” insisted Bdubs. “In fact, I didn’t see you in cafeteria. You’re accusing me of lying but I think YOU’RE the one who’s lying. You’re the imposter, aren’t you!”

“No, I saw Beans on the medbay scanner earlier,” Ren said. “It said “waiting for SmallBeans” when I tried to get on it, so he’s definitely legit. I think you’ve tipped your hand a bit too far here, Bdubs.”

Bdubs glanced from Ren to Beans, then at Grian and Etho. “You two gotta believe me. I’m not the imposter.”

Grian scowled at him suspiciously. “Sorry, Bdubs, but I agree with Ren and Beans. You were also closest to where Scar was last seen.”

“You’re shoving me into space because of THAT?” Bdubs’s voice rose an octave. “Because of my positioning?!”

“No, because you’re trying to throw Beanie under the bus when he’s already been cleared,” said Ren, also scowling at Bdubs. “Let’s do it, let’s vote Bdubs.”

“No, no, no! It’s not me!”

As the timer hit zero, the votes were revealed. Everyone had voted for Bdubs. 

Grian turned away from the airlock, the sound of Bdubs’s screams fading as he floated out further into space. “Okay, we’re safe,” he said. “Bdubs had to be one of them. Now we need to find the other.”

“Let’s get our tasks done,” suggested Ren. “We only have one task left each, right? Let’s just get them over with.”

“Agreed.”

Despite their better judgement, the group split off in different directions. 

Beans warily made his way to admin to finish off his wires task. He couldn’t help continually looking over his shoulder, especially at the vent sitting ominously in the corner of the room, but nobody appeared or approached him at all. 

After finishing the task, he decided to go and look for Ren. He took off running through the cafeteria and round towards the right side, shuddering at the deafening silence on the ship. No more Tango and Impulse laughing together as they joked about being killed in electrical, no more Grian amusedly yelling at Scar about how he was going to mess up the game, no more Bdubs and Pungence bickering the way brothers do, no more Skizzleman screaming at every single little thing that spooked him. 

Regardless of whether Etho or Grian was the last imposter, all Beans was sure of was that he had Ren, so he needed to do whatever he could to make sure they had a happy ending. 

Just as he was checking in communications, red lights started flashing and the horrifying alarm went off, signifying the imminent meltdown of the reactor. His heart skipping a beat, Beans spun round and rushed towards the reactor, knowing he had less than a minute to get there. 

However, as he rounded the corner just past electrical, he caught sight of Ren sitting slumped against the wall at the bottom of the lower engine, a bloody wound in his chest. 

“Oh my God...!” Beans gasped. “Ren!”

Ren’s eyes were closed, but his chest was rising and falling, so Beans knew he was still alive. “I-It’s Etho,” he rasped. “He killed Grian. W-We’re all that’s l-left.” 

“Oh, no…” Beans hesitated, itching to go and help Ren but knowing he didn’t have much time left. “I-I have to do reactor. I’m sorry.”

“B-Beans, wait.”

Beans paused mid-turn. “Ren?”

Coughing weakly, Ren looked up at his newest friend, his tear-filled eyes pleading. “Will you stay with me? P-Please?”

Beans glanced back towards the reactor for only a brief moment. He couldn’t kid himself anymore; he knew as well as Ren did that nobody would be waiting to do the other hand scanner and save them from blowing up. No matter what he did from here, he was just delaying the inevitable. 

So he sat down beside Ren, who leaned his head on Beans’s shoulder. Beans rested his head on top of Ren’s and the two clasped hands, listening to the blaring of the alarm, trying desperately to rouse them into action. But they both knew there was no point. 

Of course it was Etho, Beans thought despairingly. Something had told him that Etho had been too quiet at the last meeting. And Grian wouldn’t have pushed so hard to get his imposter buddy voted off if he had been one himself. Maybe if Beans had realised that sooner, he could have prevented this.

“I’m s-sorry you didn’t get your happy ending, Beanie,” Ren whispered, taking in a shaky breath. “You d-deserved it.”

“So did you,” murmured Beans, clutching Ren as close to him as he could. “It isn’t fair the way things turned out.”

A short pause followed his words. 

“B-Beanie?”

“Yeah?”

“...thank you.”

Beans closed his eyes, preparing himself for the end. 

“Thank you too.”


	2. Rest Easy

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tango dies and Etho feels responsible

“Hi Etho!” chirped Tango as he fell into step next to his close friend at the bottom of storage.

“Hi Tango!” Etho beamed back. “How’s it going?”

“Pretty good. Where ya headin’?”

“Navigation. You?”

“Ahh, heading up to weapons.” Tango smiled at his friend. “Wanna meet up afterwards and do a task or two together? Got security or admin at all?”

“I got admin,” Etho replied happily. “I’ll do that with you. I’ll meet you at weapons after I’m done with nav; stabilizing steering and charting courses only take a second.”

“Great!”

Etho peeled off into navigation while Tango headed up to weapons, neither of them particularly concerned about their safety. After all, Etho knew they already had one imposter off the ship, and he already had a good idea of who the other one was. He was confident they had this in the bag.

After doing his two tasks in navigation, Etho headed up to weapons, his mind already on the next meeting and how he might be able to prove who the other imposter was.

But as he rounded the corner, he spotted Tango’s dead body lying on the floor next to the shooting chair, blood gushing from a gaping gunshot wound in his chest.

Suppressing a horrified scream, Etho slammed his fist on the report button on the wall.

Everyone was immediately teleported over to the meeting table, as usual. The only people missing were Scar, Grian, Beans, and now Tango. 

“Where is it?” asked Bdubs impatiently. “Where’s the body?”

“Wait, is it Tango?” Impulse’s shoulders drooped at the look on Etho’s face. “Oh, no…” 

“Tango?!” Skizzleman automatically moved closer to Impulse. “But I j-just spoke to him! How can he be…?”

Etho cleared his throat to compose himself. “Hey, everybody. Tango is dead in weapons. I just came up from navigation and found him.”

“I can clear Pungence and Bdubs,” said Ren immediately. “We were all together for most of that round.”

Etho’s head snapped round to stare at him in shock. “Wait, you said Pungence?”

Ren nodded. “Yeah. He, Bdubs, and I all went from security to med bay to storage together. We weren’t out of each other’s sight that whole time.” 

“What is it, Etho?” asked Impulse gently. 

“I-I thought it was Pungence. I was so sure it was him.”

“What?” yelped Pungence in surprise. “Why me?!”

“Because you were the only one who didn’t vote for Grian when Bdubs saw him kill Scar,” Etho explained. “And you didn’t have an alibi for Beans’s death.”

“Tango also didn’t vote for Grian, though,” Pungence said.

“Yeah, well, Tango’s DEAD!” snapped Etho abruptly. 

Impulse flinched, causing Skizzleman to put his arm over his best friend’s shoulder. 

“Etho, what’s going on?” Bdubs demanded. “Why are you so worked up?”

“I-I just…” Etho sighed, shaking his head slowly. “I’m sorry. So if you three were together then where were Impulse and Skizzle?”

“I was in electrical the whole time,” replied Impulse. “I had three tasks in there and I failed at the spinney one three times in a row.”

“I did my scan in medbay and then went to do shields,” Skizzleman added. “I believe I was seen.”

“I can confirm we did see Skizzle standing on the scanner,” said Ren. “But that was only briefly.”

“So neither of you actually have an alibi?” Etho said.

Impulse narrowed his eyes slightly. “Neither do you. You said you were coming up from navigation? Well, you were the only one on that side of the ship so you might be self-reporting.”

“I might be, but I’m not. Tango and I were together around storage. He said he had asteroids so we agreed to meet up once I’d done my tasks in navigation. I literally just walked into weapons when I found him.” 

A brief pause followed his words.

“What are we thinking, guys?” asked Ren.

“Well, there’s only three real possibilities, right?” Bdubs said. “One, Etho is self-reporting. Two, Skizzle killed Tango and vented from weapons to nav, then nav to shields while Etho was heading up to weapons. Three, Impulse is straight-up lying about where he was and hid in the vent after killing Tango.”

Etho hesitated as Impulse and Skizzleman began loudly protesting their innocence. His plan had been completely thrown off by the revelation that the person whom he had assumed to be the last imposter had an alibi for Tango’s murder. There was no way Pungence could have escaped from Ren and Bdubs long enough to commit murder all the way across the ship. It couldn’t be him. 

“-don’t have enough evidence to throw anyone off right now,” Bdubs was saying, when Etho managed to pull himself out of his thoughts. “We just need to do our tasks and keep an eye on each other.”

Etho watched his friends nod and murmur their agreement, everyone skipping their votes. As the meeting came to an end and everyone started to disperse, Etho walked over to the glass window in the cafeteria and stared out, tears pricking behind his eyelids. “I’m so sorry, Tango,” he whispered.

“Etho, are you okay?” came Impulse’s voice from behind him. “What’s going on?”

“I…” Etho slowly turned to face his friend. “I should have been there. I should have gone with him to weapons to make sure he was safe. It’s my fault he’s gone.”

Impulse frowned sympathetically. “Etho, it’s not your fault. You didn’t kill Tango; you’re not responsible for his death.”

As the ensuing silence grew longer, Impulse let out a quiet breath. “Buddy… I didn’t kill Tango either. You know that, right?”

Etho didn’t directly respond to his statement. “We should get back to our tasks. I still need to do Simon Says.”

“Alright, then…” Impulse didn’t seem too happy but he turned and walked away without another word. 

Etho started to head off in the opposite direction towards the reactor, but changed his mind and pursued Impulse down towards admin, where he had seen his friend heading, intending to apologise and ask if Impulse wanted to accompany him to reactor. 

He entered the admin just in time to witness Impulse shooting Skizzleman straight through the heart from behind. 

“No!” Etho gasped involuntarily, staring in shock as Skizzleman’s limp body hit the floor.

Impulse spun round, his eyes widening. “Etho! I-!”

Shaking himself into action, Etho sprinted back up to cafeteria and smashed the emergency meeting button so hard that his palms stung. 

“What NOW?” Bdubs demanded as everyone was teleported back to the table. 

“Impulse just killed Skizzle in admin!” Etho choked out. “I saw him do it!”

“No, you’re lying!” Impulse yelled back. “You can’t pin this on me! YOU killed Skizz!”

Etho’s voice cracked. “You told me Tango’s death wasn’t my fault; well, you were right. It was YOURS, because you killed him, just like you killed Skizzle!”

“Etho, would Impulse really kill his two best friends?” asked Ren doubtfully.

“Yes, because he knew you three were in the clear and he wanted to frame me.”

“You’re lying!” snarled Impulse. 

Etho’s fists clenched, his hands starting to tremble. “No, YOU lied to ME. I should have been able to save Tango and Skizzle but I didn’t, so now I have to live with that. But you won’t.”

Maintaining eye contact with him, Etho locked in his vote for Impulse.

Ren, Bdubs, and Pungence all exchanged looks, before following suit.

The voting results were revealed. One vote for Etho. Four votes for Impulse.

“You’re making a mistake!” Impulse growled. “It’s Etho! He’s pulling the wool over your eyes! He’s gonna kill you all!” 

Etho turned away, unable and unwilling to watch his former friend be thrown out into space. As he heard the airlock close, he gingerly touched his gloved hand to the glass of the cafeteria window, staring out at the stars surrounding the ship.

_I’m sorry I couldn’t save you, Tango. I just hope you can rest easy now._

And as he gazed out at the twinkling stars, he could almost feel a familiar hand on his shoulder, telling him that everything was going to be okay.


	3. The Vent

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Skizzleman catches an imposter venting (based on Skizzleman’s 7th Feb Among Us video)

Sighing to himself, Skizzleman headed from upper engine to lower engine, doing his tasks with his normal level of urgency. As he passed reactor, he thought he could hear the voice of their newest friend Beans, but he didn’t think much of it.

He started his task at lower engine, focused entirely on the screen in front of him. 

“How’re we doing over here?” came Scar’s friendly voice from somewhere behind him. 

“Doing alright,” said Skizzleman, turning as he finished his task. “How’s-.”

He broke off with a yelp as the vent popped open at his feet and Beans flew out. The two stared at each other for a moment in silence before Skizzleman turned tail and fled, screaming at the top of his lungs. 

“GRIAN!” he shrieked, spotting the red crewmate coming down from the upper engine. “GRIANITSBEANSDONTGONEARHIMHESGONNAKILLME!”

Grian also yelped and darted into reactor to avoid getting bowled over by his friend, but that was where he found a yellow-clad body in front of the Simon Says task. Reacting quickly, he hit the report button.

Skizzleman was still running as he teleported to the meeting with everyone else so his momentum ended up carrying him into the table and subsequently knocking him to the floor, winding him.

“What’s going on?!” Tango yelped. “What’s with the screaming?”

Panting hard, Skizzleman leapt up from the floor and pointed across the table at Beans. “I SAW SMALLBEANS VENT!”

“That’s a lie!” Beans retorted. “Skizzle killed Impulse in front of me and went straight into the vent.”

“You can’t pin this on me!” Skizzleman could still feel his heart pounding out of his chest. “I didn’t even know Impulse was dead!” 

“You’re lying!” 

“Hold on, hold on!” Grian waved his hands in the air, drawing the attention of his crewmates to himself. “Time out.”

Tango frowned. “Wait, where’s Impulse’s body?” 

Skizzleman shook his head helplessly. “I-I don’t know; I didn’t even know Impulse was dead!” 

“Yes you did, because you killed him,” Beans snapped. 

“No I didn’t! I was doing my task in lower engine and you appeared right in front of me! I saw it!” 

Grian cleared his throat, again drawing attention back to himself. “Here’s what I think happened: Mr Beanie Boy over there killed Impulse in reactor, vented out, and accidentally popped up in front of Skizzleman, which is why I heard “WAAAAAAAAAH!” from Skizzleman as he ran towards the button to report what he saw.” 

Skizzleman couldn’t help giggling at Grian’s impression of him. “That’s- That’s very accurate. But couldn’t you just say I was screaming?”

Grian shrugged, before turning to Beans. “Got anything to say for yourself?”

“I say that that’s a nice theory, Grian, but have you ever thought about the fact that you are wrong, and that is not true?” Beans said innocently.

Skizzleman scoffed. “THAT’s your argument?”

“That’s not a great rebuttal there, Beans,” Ren added quietly. 

“Yeah, have you got any other defence than “I didn’t do it”?” demanded Grian.

“Um…” Beans appeared defeated. “...no…”

Skizzleman started to relax as it became apparent to him that everyone was on his side. “See! You killed Impulse and vented in front of me. Not a real smart move, buddy.”

Beans scowled. “I’m not your buddy.”

“No, of course you’re not; you’re the imposter. You killed Impulse! Admit it!”

“Okay, fine, I killed Impulse! Are you happy now?” 

“Out you go!” Bdubs crowed triumphantly. “One imposter down! That was easy!”

Skizzleman glanced around the table as everyone cast their votes. Etho appeared to be looking towards Tango, but other than that, nobody seemed particularly suspect at this point. 

Once Beans had been unanimously ejected from the ship, everyone scattered to do their tasks. Ignoring the chill running down his spine, Skizzleman headed over to security, realising too late that everyone else had gone other ways and nobody would be able to alibi him.

As he got to security, he took a moment to peek at the cameras. He watched Grian and Scar run up the corridor and head into O2, while Bdubs exited medbay and went into cafeteria on another monitor. 

“Nobody coming this way, huh?” he muttered to himself.

Sighing, he opened up the panel to the right of the monitors and started the download to his tablet.

“Skizz.”

Skizzleman turned and found Tango approaching him, rather menacingly. “H-Hey, Tango. What’s… What’s up?”

“You got my partner ejected,” said Tango dangerously. “That’s what’s up.”

A pit opened in Skizzleman’s stomach. “Oh, no…”

“Yes.”

“T-Tango, I-.” Skizzleman broke off as he backed away from his friend. “P-People know I’m in here!”

“I don’t care if I get caught; I have to avenge Beans.” Tango’s red eyes flashed. “And don’t you worry, I’ll make sure your body isn’t found for a LONG time.” 

At that moment, the red alarm went off, signifying the damage to the O2 system.

Skizzleman coughed as the air became thinner. “No, please, Tango! I thought we were buddies!”

“Oh, we were. In fact, I was planning to let you live for a while longer after Beans killed Impulse. But you just had to ruin it, didn’t you?”

With his back against the wall, Skizzleman had nowhere to go. “T-Tango… Please…” 

A malicious smile came over Tango’s face. “Think of it this way: you’re about to see Impulse again, aren’t you?”

Skizzleman inhaled shakily, tears flowing freely from his eyes. He could feel Impulse’s presence, Impulse’s strength, but it wasn’t enough to save him. “No…”

Before he could react, Tango moved lightning fast and stabbed Skizzleman through the chest. 

Pain and blood erupted from the wound as Skizzleman collapsed to the ground, choking and gasping and clutching his chest in a futile effort to stop the blood flow and save his own life. But his mind and body wouldn’t cooperate. He opened his mouth to call for help but no sound came out. Despite his best efforts, he found himself being pulled rapidly towards the darkness. 

And the last thing he saw before his eyes closed forever was Tango disappearing into the vent.


	4. Ruin Your Day

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Skizzleman haunts the imposter who killed him (based on Skizzleman's 17th Feb Among Us video)

Humming to himself, Skizzleman trotted down from cafeteria, heading towards electrical. 

“Hey, Skizzle!” called Scar from behind him. “Wait for me!” 

Skizzleman slowed to let Scar catch up with him. “Hey, buddy. Heading to electrical?”

“Yup! Can I come with you?”

Despite being wary of everyone on the ship, Skizzleman nodded. “Uh, sure thing. I could use an ally right now.”

The two went into electrical and up to the back half of the room. As Skizzleman was pulling up his task screen, however, he noticed a horrifying sight in the corner of the room.

“Oh my God, there’s a body in here!” he yelped, darting for the report button.

BANG!

“There’s two now,” said Scar’s echoey, malicious voice.

Skizzleman opened his eyes and found himself looking at his own dead body. He screamed, staring with horror at his see-through hands. 

“Hey, Skizzle, Skizzle, relax!” came the voice of the other murder victim.

“ICANTRELAXIMAGHOSTIMDEADOHMYGODIMACTUALLYPHYSICALLYDEADWHA-”

“Skizzle!” Beans grabbed Skizzleman’s shoulders. “Relax. Just breathe for a moment.”

“I DON’T NEED TO BREATHE; I’M DEAD!” Skizzleman screeched.

Beans sighed. “Oh, this is going to be a long afterlife… Skizzle, mate, relax. Just relax.”

After a few seconds, Skizzleman finally managed to let himself calm down. He stared down at his dead body, then over at Beans’s in the corner. “W-Wait, who killed you?” he stammered.

“Tango,” said Beans sadly. “Tango and Scar are the imposters.”

“Great!” Skizzleman threw his arms up in frustration. “What are we supposed to do now?”

“Continue with our tasks and hope that the others will catch them,” Beans replied. 

“Screw that, I’m gonna go haunt Scar.”

He floated towards the door, but stopped as he remembered exactly what he was now. Dead. A ghost. So he turned and floated through the wall, straight from electrical to lower engine. 

Maybe this ghost thing would work out after all. 

It didn’t take him long to find Scar. The orange-clad imposter was standing in security with two other people: Bdubs and Grian. Skizzleman let out a quiet sigh of relief. As long as those two stuck together, Scar wouldn’t be able to get them.

“Hey, Scar!” Skizzleman yelled in Scar’s ear. “Can you hear me?!”

To his utter shock, Scar jumped a foot to the left. “Wh-What was that?!”

Grian and Bdubs shot him an almost identical frown. “What do you mean?” Grian asked slowly. “What was what?”

Scar blinked, clearly realising that nobody else had heard that. “Uh, n-nothing. Sorry. I thought I heard something.”

“You DID!” Skizzleman crowed. “You can hear me! Oh, boy! I’m gonna ruin your day, Scar.”

He suppressed a laugh at the disgruntled look on Scar’s face.

“I can talk to you like this and you can’t do anything cuz there’s two people in the room. In fact, you can’t do anything about this, PERIOD. You may have killed me, homie, but all you did was ensure that I’m gonna be your problem for the rest of your life. I am NOT gonna shut up. Ever.”

“Ohhhh,” Scar groaned quietly. “I hate you.”

Skizzleman looked sharply over at Grian, but neither he nor Bdubs seemed to have heard Scar’s words. 

Finally, Scar left security and headed up towards medbay. Skizzleman followed him, making annoying noises, into medbay, where Scar stopped and glared at him. “QUIET, SKIZZ.”

“Nope!” sang Skizzleman triumphantly. “Hey, can you see me too?”

Scar scowled. “Yeah.”

“Ohh, even BETTER!” Skizzleman started pulling faces. “Hey, Scar, check me out. Look at me!”

“No, you know what?” Scar turned away, shielding his eyes. “I’m just not gonna look at you. You can’t be THAT annoying if I can’t see you.” 

So Skizzleman did the only logical thing and started singing the American national anthem at the top of his lungs. 

He grinned as Scar dashed out of the medbay, shaking his head frantically. 

Beans floated up next to him, laughing quietly. “You’re really getting to him.”

“Oh yeah. My plan is to eventually get him to yell “shut up” aloud in front of people. You wanna compete to see who can get their imposter to reveal themselves first?”

Beans stared at him for a moment. “Okay, why not.” 

But before the two could move, they heard the familiar noise indicating that a body had been reported. 

“Man, are they only just finding our bodies NOW?” Skizzleman complained. 

“Yup.”

They floated over to the table to watch the meeting. Not to their surprise, nobody seemed to have any solid idea of who the imposters were. In fact, everyone appeared to have different theories. 

“It must be Grian and Bdubs!” Pungence proclaimed at one point. 

Skizzleman groaned. “Oh boy, this is not gonna go well for us…” 

“Nobody’s even accusing Tango,” Beans observed. “And he’s just sitting back, letting other people accuse each other.”

The meeting ended with no result. Disappointed, Skizzleman trailed after Scar, floating in front of him every now and then to remind the imposter that his victim was still here. As he did, he spewed out as much meaningless gibberish as he could, talking about anything and everything that came into his mind. 

He followed Scar into communications, where Grian was standing doing the download task. 

“Hey, Scar, that was a pretty cool one-liner in electrical,” said Skizzleman smugly. “Did you think of it yourself or did Tango help you? Did he tell you he was gonna kill in electrical or was it just coincidence you ran in there with me? Are you the mastermind behind this whole plot or is it Tango?”

“Oh, just shut up!” Scar yelled suddenly. “I can’t take it anymore!”

Grian spun round, staring at Scar with wide eyes. “Scar? Wh-what’s going on…?”

Skizzleman’s grin fell. 

After a moment, Scar grinned and drew his gun. 

“GRIAN, GET AWAY FROM HIM!” Skizzleman screamed, trying desperately to push Scar away or grab his gun. “RUN!” 

BANG!

Skizzleman screamed again and didn’t stop as Grian’s body hit the ground. The red crewmate’s ghost shot upwards, crying out in shock, pain, and fear. Skizzleman quickly pulled Grian into a tight hug, the two clutching each other tightly as the reactor alarm went off overhead. 

Across the ship, Beans watched Tango run into the reactor room and wait by the entrance. 

“I’m so disappointed in you,” he growled. 

“I know,” Tango responded emotionlessly. “I just want all this to be over.”

As footsteps sounded down the hall, Beans glanced over and found Bdubs running towards reactor. His heart ached for his friend, who had no idea what was coming. 

“I’m sorry,” said Tango quietly. 

Bdubs appeared in the doorway. “Tango, what’re you-?”

Beans looked away as he heard the sound of a knife being plunged into a body. 

They’d lost.


	5. You And Me

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Grian decides to protect Scar, no matter the cost

“Scar!” Grian yelled, cupping his hands around his mouth. “SCAR! C’mere!”

Scar left the safety of admin and approached Grian in storage. “What is it? Are you gonna kill me?”

“Of course not,” chuckled Grian. “I know you’re innocent, so let’s go do electrical together. It’ll be safer for us to stick together.”

“Why, though?” Scar asked as he fell into step behind Grian. “We already kicked Beans off. Why do we need to be so cautious?”

“Cuz there’s only four of us left. C’mon, I’m not gonna hurt you, buddy.”

Despite grumbling under his breath, Scar followed Grian into electrical and up to the back part. As Grian started his task, he glanced over at Scar, who was leaning against the wall, watching him.

“Do you trust me, Scar?” Grian asked.

After a moment, Scar nodded. “I do trust you, Grian.”

“Good. It’s you and me now, okay? As long as we stick together, we’ll be fine.”

As Scar opened his mouth to reply, the sound of the door sliding shut startled them both. Scar leapt closer to Grian and grabbed his hand for comfort. “Wh-What was that?”

“The door.” Grian craned his neck but he couldn’t quite see the door from his position. “Someone might have just come in.”

As if on cue, Ren emerged from behind the dividing wall, a dagger glinting in his hand. 

Grian gasped and pulled Scar behind him. “Ren…?”

“Ah. You’re both in here. That’s a shame.” Ren sighed, starting to move menacingly towards the pair. “Grian, step aside so I can kill Scar. You don’t need to get hurt.” 

“No, wait!” Grian pushed out one hand towards Ren to stop him in his tracks, the other still clutching Scar’s hand behind him. “Ren, listen to me. Don’t hurt Scar, okay? You can kill me, but only if you promise to leave Scar alone.”

“No, Grian!” Scar gasped out. “Don’t let him kill you!”

Grian held Ren’s gaze steadily. “If you kill Scar right now, I’ll report you straight away. But if you kill me and leave Scar alone, he won’t report it. You’ll be long gone before anyone finds you in here.”

“Why exactly are you so keen to chuck yourself in front of my knife?” demanded Ren. 

“Because Scar is all I have left and I will do whatever it takes to protect him.” Grian held still, feeling Scar trembling behind him. “Do we have a deal?”

Ren watched him suspiciously for a few seconds, before giving a single nod. “I agree to your terms. I won’t harm Scar.”

Grian took in a shaky breath. “Th-Thank you.”

Scar clutched Grian’s arm like his life depended on it. “Grian, y-you can’t just let him kill you!”

“I’m sorry.” Grian turned to him, tears filling his eyes. “I have to make sure you’re safe, no matter what.” 

As the two steadily maintained eye contact, Scar saw a flash of light over Grian’s shoulder as Ren lunged with his dagger. 

Scar screamed. 

Grian screamed...

...but instead of a sharp knife being plunged into his back, Grian felt the familiar jerk and heard the familiar sound of an emergency meeting being called. 

Now standing around the table, Grian, Scar, and Ren all stared at each other with wide eyes, waiting for someone to speak or make a move. 

Skizzleman frowned as his gaze flickered from person to person. “Okay, what the frick is happening? I feel like I just interrupted something here.”

Scar immediately looked at Grian, whose eyes were fixed on Ren. “Nothing’s happening,” Grian said slowly. “We’re fine.”

“Like hell you are! You’re staring at Ren like he’s-.” Skizzleman broke off. “Like he’s the imposter… Oh my God, did you see something? Is Ren the imposter?”

“No,” replied Grian firmly. He knew that if he told the truth and something went wrong here, Ren would kill Scar. “Everything’s fine. Why did you press the button?”

“Because there’s only four of us left and I couldn’t find you guys and I got scared!” Skizzleman shot back. “Grian. Homie. Are you one hundred percent sure Ren isn’t the imposter?”

Grian hesitated. Skizzleman was throwing him one last lifeline; did he dare take it? What would happen if the vote somehow didn’t go his way? Not only would Scar’s life be in danger but so would Grian’s and Skizzleman’s. The stakes were so high; did he dare risk it?

“Hey, G-Grian?” Scar stammered unexpectedly. “I-I think I’m bleeding.”

“What?!” Grian whirled round to face Scar, who had his left hand pressed to his arm. As he took it away, a small bloodstain could be seen against the orange spacesuit and on Scar’s gloved hand. “Oh my God!”

He started to move but Skizzleman was quicker. He hurriedly rounded the table and inspected Scar’s injury, as Grian anxiously watched. “Okay, it doesn’t look too bad. It’s just a flesh wound.”

Grian let out a sigh of relief, before turning to Ren with a dangerous expression. “Skizzle, Ren IS the imposter,” he said, looking Ren dead in the eyes. “I said I’d let him kill me as long as he left Scar alone, but it looks like he broke our deal.”

Ren growled softly, clearly sensing that there was no way out of this situation anymore. “Not on purpose. He must have moved or something when I was aiming for you.”

“That doesn’t make it okay!” snapped Grian. “You hurt Scar, so the deal is off. Vote him out, Skizz.”

Skizzleman glanced nervously from Ren to Grian, before turning to Scar. “Is he telling the truth?”

Scar nodded. “Y-Yeah. Ren was gonna k-kill me.”

“Oh, just throw me off already,” Ren growled. “I wish I’d killed all of you when I had the chance.”

Shivering at the venom in Ren’s words, Grian locked in his vote, closely followed by Scar and Skizzleman. As the latter took Ren to the airlock, Grian moved around the table and gently took hold of Scar’s arm. “Are you okay?”

But Scar didn’t answer his question. Instead, he stared at Grian and whispered, “Were you really gonna sacrifice your life for me, Grian?”

“Of course I was.” Grian gave a small smile. “You’re my best friend, Scar. We’re in this together and we always will be, okay?”

Tearing up, Scar grabbed Grian in a tight hug. Grian hugged him back, finally letting himself relax. All the pain and terror that he had bottled up inside him simply flowed away with the knowledge that everything would be okay now.

“Is it over, Gri?” Scar murmured.

Grian nodded.

“It’s over, buddy. We’re free.”


	6. No Matter What

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A traumatic round for Bdubs

Bdubs sighed as he entered electrical and discovered Impulse already inside, watching him warily from his task spot. “If you kill me in here, I swear to God-.”

“I was gonna say the same thing,” retorted Bdubs. “Don’t do this to me, Impulse. Not today. I’m on-edge enough as it is.”

The two did their tasks in silence until someone else entered the room, someone with a much cheerier disposition than Bdubs and Impulse. “Hey, gents! How’s it going in here?”

“Horrible,” Bdubs muttered. “I hate it.”

Ren chuckled. “A little nervous, are we?”

“Being down to only five people makes me VERY nervous. Especially when I’m standing in the middle of the kill box with two people who could both very well be the imposters.” 

Impulse rolled his eyes. “Whatever. I’m done with my tasks in here so I’m out.” 

However, just as he turned to leave, the doors slid shut with a metallic swishing noise.

Bdubs leapt nearly a foot in the air. “Uh oh!”

Impulse dashed to the door and hit it with his fist. “Hey! Who’s locking us in here?!”

After finishing his task, Ren rushed over to join the other two by the door. “This is bad, guys. The door controls are on the outside and there’s only two people left alive. If one of them kills the other, we’re never getting out of here.”

“Surely we’re safe in here, though?” asked Impulse nervously.

Slowly, all eyes turned to the vent in the corner of the room. 

“We’re all gonna die,” Bdubs stated. 

Sighing heavily, Impulse sat down on the floor, leaning against the wall. “I guess we’d better make ourselves comfy.”

Ren followed suit but Bdubs remained standing, his trembling hands clasped together. “Guys, wh-what if the imposter sabotages O2 or reactor?”

“Don’t think about that,” urged Impulse reassuringly. “We’ll be fine. Things can’t really get any worse.”

As if on cue, the lights flickered and went out. 

“I hate you so goddamn much,” growled Bdubs in the darkness. 

“I wasn’t the one who sabotaged the lights!” Impulse snapped back.

“Oh God, I’m gonna die!” Bdubs’s voice rose to a shrill cry, the sound of his hyperventilating clearly audible. “I can’t see anything! I-I’m gonna die! Oh God, oh god, oh g-!”

“Bdubs!” Impulse reached out, but his friend was too far away. “Calm down!”

“DON’T TELL ME TO CALM DOWN!” Bdubs shrieked.

Ren winced at the sound of his friend’s loud voice reverberating around the tiny room.

“We can’t even see the vent anymore!” Bdubs turned, his wide eyes staring, terrified, through the darkness towards the corner where the vent was located. “Oh no, oh no, we-we’re gonna die! We’re all gonna-!”

He broke off as he frantically groped around in the dark until he found the locked door and pounded on it with all his strength. “Let me out! Please, let me out!”

Impulse closed his eyes and tipped his head back, wincing at his friend’s desperate cries. He knew there was nothing he could say to calm Bdubs down, so all he could do was let his friend burn himself out.

Finally, after what felt like hours, Bdubs stopped screaming and slowly slid down the wall, tears streaming down his face. The only sound audible in the room was his strangled sobs as he continued fighting for breath. 

Then Ren started to sing.

_“Drink up baby, stay up all night/With the things you could do/You won’t but you might/The potential you’ll be that you’ll never see/The images stuck in your head.”_

Bdubs fell silent and adjusted his position against the wall to a more comfortable one. He focused on the sound of Ren’s voice, letting his pounding heart start to calm down. 

_“Drink up with me now/And forget all about the pressure of days/Do what I say and I’ll make you okay/And drive them away/The images stuck in your head.”_

Ren took a deep breath, his voice wavering slightly. _“People you’ve been before/That you don’t want around anymore/That push and shove and won’t bend to your will/I’ll keep them still.”_

Impulse couldn’t help a small smile as he relaxed, listening to his friend’s soothing voice.

_“Drink up baby, look at the stars/I’ll kiss you again, between the bars/Where I’m seeing you there, with your hands in the air/Waiting to be finally be caught/Drink up one more time, and I’ll make you mine/Keep you apart, deep in my heart/Separate from the rest, where I like you best/And keep the things you forgot.”_

All of Ren’s worries seemed to melt away as he lost himself in his own singing. _“People you’ve been before/That you don’t want around anymore/That push and shove and won’t bend to your will/I’ll keep them still. Oh…”_

Silence descended on the room as Ren’s voice faded out. 

After a long time, Bdubs croaked, “What if Pungence and Grian are both the imposters?”

“I doubt that, honestly,” responded Impulse immediately. “Firstly, all they’d need to do is vent in here and kill one of us, and that’d be easy with the lights out. And second, we’ve definitely got one out already; I’m certain either Skizz or Tango was the other one.”

“So it doesn’t bother you that you ejected an innocent crewmate?” Bdubs said. “We ejected Skizzle AND Tango, and the game didn’t end. That means one of them was innocent.”

Impulse was silent for a few seconds. “Yeah, it bothers me. Tango and Skizz were my best friends. But sometimes, difficult decisions have to be made for the good of the ship.”

Again, silence followed his words. 

After several minutes had passed, the lights flickered back on and the door slid open. 

“Oh, thank God,” gasped Bdubs, leaping to his feet. “I’m going to reactor for Simon Says, then I’m done.”

Before either of them could respond, Bdubs dashed out of the room, wiping his eyes and trying to clear the redness to his cheeks. That had been one of the worst experiences of his life. If only he knew how much worse things were about to get.

He entered reactor and went up to Simon Says, but as he did, he spotted something red out the corner of his eye. 

It was Grian’s body.

Bdubs gasped, his hands flying to cover his mouth in shock and horror. “Grian…! No!”

He moved towards the report button.

“I wouldn’t do that if I were you,” came a familiar voice from behind him. 

Bdubs froze. Letting out a quiet sob, he slowly turned around. “I knew it must be you. I-I just didn’t didn’t want to believe it.”

Slowly, Pungence walked out from the shadows. “How did you know?”

“You’re the only person on the ship who knows about my fear of the dark, so you’re the only person who would sabotage lights to torture me, instead of reactor or O2 to win the game.”

“Huh, I guess you’re right. I didn’t even realise that.” Pungence gave a helpless shrug. “Sorry brother, but listening to your screams was just too much fun.”

Bdubs flinched. “Oh, Pungence…”

“Don’t “oh Pungence” me,” his brother snapped. “Just stay still and let me kill you.”

Bdubs shut his eyes tightly and held his breath. “Okay.” 

He heard his brother inhale sharply. “What, really? You’re not gonna put up a fight? At all?”

“I don’t want to fight you, Pungence. You’re my brother and I’ll always love you, no matter what.”

Pungence faltered, to his own surprise. He was the imposter; why was he hesitating? Why couldn’t he just shoot this pathetic little crewmate in the head, just like he’d done to Scar, Etho, AND Grian? He shouldn’t feel anything but hatred for Bdubs, and yet… 

Finally, he lowered his gun and stepped back, indicating the body behind Bdubs. “Report me.”

Bdubs’s eyes flew open in shock. “Wait, what?!”

“Report Grian’s body and vote me out. Quickly, before I change my mind.”

“No!” Bdubs firmly shook his head. “I’d rather let you kill me than be responsible for your death!”

Pungence firmly gripped Bdubs’s shoulder, forcing the brown crewmate to look at him. “Bdubs, I’m the imposter. I killed three people and framed Tango for my crimes. I’m not your brother; at least, not the way you remember him. The best way to end this is to eject me before anyone else gets hurt. Any other way will only lead to more unnecessary death. Now do it, quickly, before I lose control again.” 

Bdubs stared at his brother in anguish for a few seconds, before quickly breaking free from his grip and rushing towards Grian’s body at the bottom of reactor. 

With one last despairing look back at Pungence, Bdubs hit the report button.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The song in this chapter is Between the Bars, which Ren has actually sung on stream once. Go check out out, cuz he has an amazing voice!


	7. Buddy System

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Pungence buddies up with another crewmate to ensure his survival (based on Skizzleman’s 17th February video)

Leaving Impulse’s body beside Beans’s in electrical, Skizzleman vented up to medbay and casually stepped up onto the scanner, waiting for someone else to come in.

Sure enough, less than ten seconds later, the white-clad crewmate appeared in the doorway Skizzleman stepped off the scanner as Pungence went down to the sample dispenser. “Hey, Skizzle. How’s it going?”

“Hi, Pungence. Not bad, not bad. Just finished my scan and now I’ve got some things to do in nav.” 

“Oh, you’ve got navigation? I’ve got navigation.” Pungence smiled. “Wanna go there together?”

Skizzleman smiled back. “Sure thing. Let’s go.”

The two left medbay and made their way towards the cafeteria. “We should totally just stick together, right?” suggested Skizzleman. “You know, like the buddy system. We’ll be a lot safer if we stay together.”

“Oh yes, I agree,” Pungence said happily. “I feel a lot safer with you.”

“Ditto, buddy.”

As the two passed through weapons, they found Scar on the space laser, shooting down asteroids.

“Hey, keep it up, Scar,” said Pungence encouragingly. “You’re doing great.”

Scar beamed back. “Thanks!”

Skizzleman paused as they rounded the corner by O2. “Oh, I’ll be right there.”

After discreetly checking that Pungence was carrying on walking, Skizzleman rushed back to weapons and drew his gun. Before Scar could react, Skizzleman shot him directly through the chest. Without staying to watch his body slump, Skizzleman hurriedly left the room and dashed to catch up with Pungence, who was fixing wires just inside the entrance to navigation.

“Okay, let’s see…” Skizzleman went over to the download panel. “Could you watch my back while I do this?”

“Of course, of course.” Pungence gave a friendly smile as he sat down at the console next to Skizzleman. “Let me just chart the course here.” 

Skizzleman glanced down at Pungence and found his friend periodically looking over his shoulder to make sure nobody else was coming into the room. 

Just as Pungence got up from the chair, the report button flashed and everyone was teleported to the meeting table. 

“Oh no, we got… we got THREE dead already,” said Ren nervously. “Okay, I found Scar’s body in weapons.”

Pungence immediately gasped. “Weapons? Skizzle and I just came through weapons.”

Skizzleman’s heart skipped a beat but he forced himself to keep calm. “Yeah, we did.”

“And we saw someone there, didn’t we?” Pungence looked up at his friend. “Who did we see there? Was it Scar?”

Skizzleman blinked, taken aback for only a moment. “Yeah, yeah it was. He was doing asteroids.”

Pungence turned back to the group. “Skizzle and I just passed through weapons about a minute ago and Scar was still alive then. We didn’t see anyone else.” 

“Okay, so who can vouch for who?” Grian said. 

“I can vouch for Skizzle,” said Pungence immediately. 

Skizzleman nodded in agreement. “I can vouch for Pungence too. He and I were together the whole time.”

“You and I were together, G,” Bdubs added, looking at Grian. “We saw Beans not long before the report, didn’t we?”

“We did, yeah.”

“And me,” said Tango, raising his hand. “I was there.”

“And Tango was with us for most of that time as well,” said Grian, nodding. “So it must be a self-report.”

“Wait, what?” Ren blinked. “Seriously?”

Grian shrugged. “Everyone else was together. There’s no-one else it could have been.”

Ren glanced nervously around at the accusing faces of his crewmates. “No no, it’s not me. I went from storage to comms, and then up to weapons, which is where I found the body.”

“Yeah, but Skizz and Pungence saw him alive not long before that,” argued Grian. “So it must be you.”

“There’s only six of us left and two imposters,” Bdubs pointed out. “We gotta vote someone out or we’re gonna lose.”

“It’s not me!” Ren’s voice rose. “It’s gotta be Skizzleman and Pungence; they’re vouching for each other AND they were in the vicinity!”

“Pungence was the first one at reactor fixing it at the start of the round,” Grian said. “And I have no reason to be sus of Skizz. Stop stalling, Ren; just vote for yourself.”

Clearly realising that everyone had already voted for him, Ren shook his head in defeat as he reluctantly tapped his portrait on the screen. “You’re making a mistake.”

“We’re really not,” Bdubs replied amusedly. “Bye bye, Ren.”

After Ren had been ejected, everyone started to split up again. Pungence quickly approached Skizzleman. “What tasks do you have left? I just have to pick up my sample and finish off wires in admin.”

“I have to accept diverted power in storage and then upload data, so why don’t you pick up your sample and I’ll meet you in admin?”

Pungence nodded happily. “Sounds great!”

Skizzleman watched him leave the cafeteria before heading down to storage and standing at the task, warily watching for anyone passing by. 

However, only Bdubs came into storage. He and Skizzleman gave each other a knowing look, before Bdubs pulled out his tablet and tapped it a few times.

Immediately, the alarm went off overhead, red lights flashing.

Without a word, Skizzleman and Bdubs took off towards the reactor, knowing that the remaining crewmates would soon congregate there. 

Bdubs ran to the top scanner while Skizzleman ran to the bottom. Whoever came next would die, whether it be by Skizzleman’s knife or Bdubs’s gun. 

But to Skizzleman’s dismay, the first person to run into reactor was Pungence, who immediately came towards him.

“Quick, go do that one!” Skizzleman shouted, pointing towards the other scanner. 

Pungence shook his head as he continued running down towards him. “Bdubs has it; I’ll help you down here.”

Skizzleman grimaced. He had been hoping that he wouldn’t have to kill his buddy, but it seemed he had no choice. 

“I’m sorry, Pungence,” he said.

Pungence turned to him, his innocent eyes filled with worry but absolutely no suspicion. “What do you mean?”

Skizzleman wordlessly drew his dagger.

“No…!” Pungence backed away in terror, but he had nowhere to go. “Y-You were the imposter this whole time...?!”

Skizzleman cast a sad look at his friend. “I really am sorry.”

His breaths quickening almost to the point of hyperventilation, Pungence looked desperately towards the other hand scanner, where his brother was standing. “Bdubs, help! HELP!”

But Bdubs simply turned to Skizzleman and gave a single nod.

Before Pungence could move, Skizzleman stabbed him swiftly through the stomach.

Gasping and crying in pain, Pungence dropped to his knees, clutching his bloody wound in agony. “I trusted you, Skizzle...!” he choked. 

The blue-clad imposter didn’t respond.

Bdubs came to stand by Skizzleman’s side and the two watched Pungence slowly bleed out on the floor. Staring up at them with a look of pure betrayal, Pungence took his final shuddering breath, before falling still.

And with that, the game was won.


	8. Home

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tango and Impulse stick together to survive (based loosely on a moment in Tango’s 5th November 2020 video)

After charting the ship’s course, Tango trotted out of navigation, intending to head down and around to admin. He spotted Impulse walking just ahead of him so he put on a burst of speed to catch up, a friendly greeting on his tongue, but the words died as they rounded a corner…

...and saw Bdubs watching Skizzleman’s dead body fall.

Tango froze.

Impulse froze as well, but only momentarily. Before Bdubs could move towards them, he hit the report button, teleporting everyone to the meeting table. 

Nobody spoke for a few seconds. 

“Where is the body?” asked Etho after a moment. 

“In the corridor between navigation and shields,” said Bdubs. “I just walked up on it when it was-.”

“No, no!” snapped Impulse suddenly. “Don’t you dare lie. I saw you kill him right in the middle of the corridor.”

Bdubs glared at him. “Really? You saw me kill him? You actually saw me do the deed?”

Impulse faltered for a moment. “Well, I… no, not… not the exact killing moment. But I saw Skizz’s body fall and you were standing right there!” he added quickly. “There’s nobody else it could have been.”

“I saw it too,” said Tango unexpectedly, finally finding the strength to speak. “I came out of navigation and followed Impulse down, and we found him together.”

“No, no, no!” Bdubs snapped. “Don’t listen to them! They’re the imposters and they’re trying to frame me. Maybe it was a failed double kill! One of them killed Skizzle and the other was gonna kill me but I reported it too fast.”

“ _I_ reported it!” Impulse shot back. “You just stood there!”

“He does have the megaphone,” Ren remarked, looking towards Impulse. “Bdubs, defence?”

“I just came up from shields and saw one of them kill Skizzle! Why won’t anyone believe me?”

“Because if your story was true, you’d be able to tell us exactly who it was who killed Skizz,” Impulse said. “You’re a really perceptive person.”

“It- It was Impulse! He killed Skizzle and then reported it before Tango could kill me.”

“You get how what you’re saying makes NO sense, right?” Tango said. “Was it a failed double kill or not?”

Bdubs swung his ferocious glare to Tango. “How should I know; I’m not the imposter!”

“We gotta vote him out!” Impulse hurriedly locked in his vote for Bdubs as the timer counted down. “It’s him, I tell you!”

The other crewmates scrambled to lock in their votes. 

When they were revealed, Impulse was dismayed to see three votes for Bdubs and three votes for himself. 

“Oh, come on!” Tango snapped. “We literally saw him do it!”

“Except you didn’t,” Ren shot back. “And I don’t believe Bdubs would be stupid enough to kill someone in the middle of the hallway.”

“I believe you guys,” said Etho, nodding towards Impulse and Tango. “We gotta keep an eye on Bdubs.”

As the meeting ended, Tango stayed frozen by the button, ready to hit it at the first sign of trouble.

Impulse had initially walked away with everyone else but now he returned. “You okay, Tango?”

“I-I just…” Tango sighed. “We did see that, right? We did see Bdubs kill Skizz?”

Impulse nodded sadly. “We did. You know, Bdubs might come after one of us next. We gotta stay together and watch each other’s backs.”

“I agree.” Tango held out his hand to Impulse. “Allies?”

Impulse shook Tango’s offered hand. “Friends.”

Tango smiled gratefully. “Thanks.”

“Don’t worry about it. We’re in this together now, and we owe it to Skizz to get Bdubs out as soon as possible.”

As Tango opened his mouth to respond, the report alarm sounded and three people were teleported back to the meeting table. 

“Oh, Scar’s dead!” gasped Tango. 

“Well, it’s definitely not me and Tango cuz we were standing here the whole time,” Impulse said. 

“Right, can we actually vote Bdubs out this time?” Etho asked.

“Wh-Why me?!” Bdubs spluttered.

“Because not only did Impulse and Tango catch you with Skizzle’s body but also you ran off with Scar after the meeting concluded and everyone else was with someone who can alibi them.”

“Hey, you should be glad you made it past the last vote,” Impulse snapped at Bdubs. “Now you’re gonna get what you deserve.”

He locked in his vote for Bdubs. Thankfully, even though Ren and Bdubs both voted for him, the three votes for Bdubs meant the imposter was finally going to be ejected from the ship. 

Tango and Impulse gave each other relieved looks as the airlock closed behind Bdubs. “Come with me to security,” Tango said. “I have one more task.”

“I’m done, so okay. Let’s go.” 

The two made their way to the security room. Impulse kept watch on the cameras while Tango finished up his wires task. “So what now?” asked Tango.

“I guess we go look for the others,” Impulse replied. “Let’s check reactor first.”

Impulse led the way into reactor, but Tango paused near the entrance as he heard footsteps in the distance. He turned to find Ren coming into the room behind him, an eerie glint in his eyes. 

“Hey,” Tango said slowly. “Have you seen Etho anywhere?”

Instead of replying, Ren drew his gun.

Tango froze. 

“Tango!” yelled Impulse from somewhere to his right. 

BANG!

Tango felt himself get yanked aside just before the gun went off. Pain exploded from his arm as Impulse pulled him out of the room, shoving Ren aside as they went.

“Are you okay?” Impulse called, dragging the slower Tango down through lower engine. 

Tango wanted to tell Impulse about his potential arm injury but the adrenaline, pain, and terror was starting to overwhelm him and all he could do was stammer out, “Y-Yeah. Where are we going?”

“Ren was gonna kill you right there in front of me. He’d only risk doing that if he knew it’d win the game for him, so that means he must have killed Etho somewhere else. All we gotta do is find his body and report it, and we can vote Ren out and win.”

“Th-That… That’s actually really smart.”

Impulse chuckled wryly. “A lot smarter than just standing still and doing nothing when someone pulls a gun on you.”

Tango opened his mouth to retort but broke off with a muted wince as more pain flared up in his arm. 

A few seconds later, Impulse skidded to a halt, causing Tango to crash into him. Still clutching Tango’s hand, Impulse pointed towards the lower portion of shields. “There,” he said shakily.

Tango’s stomach dropped as his gaze followed Impulse’s finger and spotted Etho’s body lying at the base of the shields console, a gunshot wound in his stomach. 

Impulse hurriedly hit the report button, teleporting the two of them and Ren back over to the meeting table.

Without making eye contact with Ren, Impulse wordlessly locked in his vote. 

Tango lifted his hand to follow suit but as he reached for the screen, he let out a cry and clutched his arm, feeling blood oozing through his spacesuit. 

“Tango!” Impulse gasped, darting around the table to check on his best friend. “Are you hurt?”

“I-I think he got me,” Tango croaked.

Impulse carefully tore away the damaged fabric of the suit sleeve, revealing the bullet wound in Tango’s arm. “Oh no…!”

Remembering the bandages he had taken from medbay earlier during his scan, Impulse dug one out from his pocket and started to wrap it around Tango’s arm.

Tears fell from Tango’s eyes. “It hurts, Impy…” he whispered. 

Impulse clasped his best friend’s uninjured hand with his free hand. “I-I know. Just vote for Ren, quickly, and we can go home.”

Nodding bravely, Tango locked in his vote for Ren, who had been watching them steadily from his position at the table. Clearly realising there was no way out of this alive, Ren voted for himself. 

After he had ejected Ren, Impulse returned to the meeting table to find Tango finishing bandaging his arm. 

“How are you feeling?” Impulse asked gently.

“B-Better, I think.” Tango inhaled shakily. “The bullet must’ve gone straight through, so bandaging it up has helped.”

“Good.” Impulse hesitated, before grabbing his best friend and pulling him into a hug. 

Initially startled, Tango relaxed quickly and hugged him back. “We’re okay now, aren’t we, Impy? We can go home?”

Impulse nodded. A million things ran through his mind, a million things he wanted to say, but words could never accurately express exactly how terrified he had been when he thought he had lost Tango, his best friend. He couldn’t have handled losing Skizzleman AND Tango on the same day. There were so many things he wished he could say to Tango. But all he could muster was: 

“We can go home.”


	9. Just A Game

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Grian and Beans decide to compete to find the imposters first

_“Yo, Beans. You wanna see who can find both imposters first?”_

_“Grian, my friend, you’re on.”_

Those words reverberating in his mind, Beans dashed up to the top of cafeteria immediately after the last report meeting finished. He only had one task left, then he knew he could focus fully on finding the imposter. Being down to six people and two imposters left was horrifically nerve-wracking; all the imposters needed was a double kill, and it would all be over. 

As he finished his wires task in cafeteria and sprinted down towards security, he bumped into Grian coming out of medbay. 

“Found any imposters yet?” Grian teased.

“Uh, no. Not yet.” Beans smirked. “You?”

Grian’s grin fell slightly. “Shut up. I only have two tasks left, then I’m gonna be all-in on imposter hunting.”

“Well, I’ve already finished and I’m already on my way to security to do some imposter-hunting,” said Beans smugly. “Why so slow with tasks, there, Grian?”

“Hey, that scan takes, like, seven years,” Grian said defensively. “And I’ve already been interrupted doing it twice.”

“Uh huh. Better stop standing here talking to me then and get on with your tasks. Or don’t you WANT to catch an imposter or two?”

Shooting his friend an amused scowl, Grian took off towards the cafeteria.

Beans grinned and continued running towards security. Finding nobody inside, he sat down at the monitors and scrutinised the video feeds closely. He could see Grian just disappearing into admin while Etho exited and headed downwards towards storage. 

A sudden noise behind him gave him a fright. He spun sharply around and found himself face to face with Pungence, who was just climbing out of the open vent. 

The two stared at each other with wide eyes for a few seconds, before Beans launched himself out of the chair and dashed from the room.

“Beans, no, wait!” yelled Pungence from behind him.

Beans kept going, hurtling back towards cafeteria to press the emergency meeting button. Despite the fear of his life being in danger, the adrenaline was causing him to feel excited and triumphant too. He had just caught one of the imposters red-handed. 

But just as he got to the button, the report alarm sounded, and everyone was teleported to the meeting table. 

Making eye contact with Grian, Beans grinned. “It’s Pungence,” he announced triumphantly. “I saw him vent.”

“No, that’s a lie!” Pungence said immediately. “I never-!”

“He vented into security behind me so he must have just killed someone in medbay or electrical and vented, not knowing I was in there.”

“I found Ren’s body in electrical,” said Etho slowly. “So that checks out.”

Pungence shook his head frantically. “No, no, no! I was with Bdubs in storage; he can vouch for me!”

“Bdubs is dead,” said Grian and Etho, both at the exact same time. 

Pungence’s panicked eyes swept the table, clearly realising for the first time that his brother wasn’t there. “...oh…”

“You said you found Ren’s body in electrical, right?” Grian asked Etho. “Did you see anyone else around?” 

“I saw Scar running towards me as I was coming through storage towards electrical. He could’ve killed me then but he didn’t.”

“I was coming from lower engine,” said Scar. “I didn’t go into electrical.”

Beans noticed Grian giving Scar a slightly suspicious look, but the red crewmate didn’t say anything else.

“Pungence, do you have anything to say before we eject you?” Beans said.

Pungence crossed his arms and scowled. “You’re making a mistake. I didn’t kill Ren.”

“Dude, I literally saw you come out of the vent. Whether you killed Ren or not, that still makes you an imposter.”

Luckily, everyone else seemed to believe Beans. Pungence voted to skip, but everyone else voted for him. 

Beans approached Grian after the meeting, a proud grin on his face. “That, my good man, appears to be one-nil to me.”

Grian snickered and gave him a friendly shove. “Yeah, yeah. Good job, dude. Now come with me to electrical so I can finish my last task.”

When they got to electrical, Beans leant against the wall watching Grian finish his wires task. All his pride had disappeared now, replaced with an uncomfortable feeling of dread. There were only four people left now, and Beans had just gotten the remaining imposter’s partner ejected. He knew the imposter could and would come after him for revenge. 

“Grian?” he said after a moment. 

“Yeah?”

Beans hesitated. “I don’t like this game anymore.”

After a moment, Grian gave him a reassuring smile, seemingly guessing his thoughts. “Don’t worry, we’ll be fine. Hey, why don’t you tail Etho and I’ll take Scar? See if we can catch them venting or something?”

“What if they kill us?” asked Beans nervously.

“Oh, they won’t. Not if we’re careful.”

Beans didn’t like the overconfidence in Grian’s voice, but he knew he couldn’t argue with his friend. “Alright, then. Let’s do it.” 

The two separated and went in opposite directions. Beans couldn’t help wondering if Grian was just trying to get rid of him so he could kill someone without worrying about Beans seeing it, but he knew he had no choice but to trust Grian for now. 

To his relief, he found Etho very quickly. The cyan crewmate was just exiting communications when the two spotted each other. “Hey, Beans,” said Etho, giving him a friendly smile. “You done with tasks?”

Beans nodded slowly. “Grian and I both are. He went to find Scar, so we need to go find them and make sure they’re okay.”

Etho blinked. “What do you mean?”

Beans beckoned Etho back towards storage. “Please, I need to make sure Grian’s-.”

He broke off as the report alarm sounded and the two were teleported to the meeting table, along with only one other person. 

Beans gasped sharply as he made eye contact with Scar across the table. “Oh, no…!”

“I found Grian’s body on the medbay scanner,” said Scar. “I just came up from reactor and found him in there.”

Beans let out a muted sniffle, before turning to Etho. “Etho, it’s Scar,” he said shakily. “Grian said he was gonna go find Scar and pair up with him, and now he’s dead.”

“No, it’s not me!” Scar said defensively. “It could very well be Etho.”

“Etho was on the opposite side of the ship. After Grian and I separated, I saw Etho come out of comms. Even using the vents, there was no way he could have gone from medbay to comms without me seeing him. There isn’t even a vent inside comms.”

“Well, then, it could be you,” Scar accused. “What exactly were you doing before I found the body?”

“Grian and I were in electrical together for a while. We left together but he went up towards reactor and I went towards comms. That was about a minute before his body was called.” Beans turned to appeal to Etho directly. “It’s Scar, Etho. There’s nobody else it could have been.” 

“You said you came from electrical, but I only saw you coming out of storage,” said Etho. “You could have come down from medbay/cafeteria after killing Grian, or even vented into electrical and left from there.”

“But I DIDN’T!” Beans’s voice rose in a panic. “I would never kill Grian! Th-This isn’t fair, he… he was supposed to survive with me until the end. We were supposed to find the imposters together. H-He wasn’t supposed to die…”

Beans buried his face in his hands as tears flooded down his cheeks. 

Etho gazed steadily at him for what was by far the most tense few seconds of Beans’s life. Finally, he said, “I believe you.”

“What?” Scar snapped. “You can’t-!”

“Beans was the one who caught Pungence venting,” Etho interrupted calmly. “If he was the imposter, he would never have exposed his partner like that. Sorry, Scar, but this is the end of the line.” 

Scar growled under his breath. “Damnit. If I’d just killed you in storage before you found Ren’s body, we would’ve won.”

Beans shuddered. 

Unsurprisingly, when the votes were revealed, Scar voted for Beans but the other two had voted for Scar. 

As Etho took Scar off to the airlock, Beans went over to the cafeteria window and stared numbly out into space, his thoughts and emotions overwhelmed by the events of the last few hours. 

After a few minutes, Etho approached Beans by the window. “You okay, Beans?”

Beans didn’t speak for a moment. When he did, his voice was raspy. “Grian knew, didn’t he? He knew Scar was the imposter and the only way to prove it was if Scar got caught killing someone.”

His friend nodded slowly. “He did tell me that he suspected Scar more than he did me. It was a risky move to split the two of you up, but in doing so, he saved both of our lives. He sacrificed himself for us.” 

“I wish…” Beans squeezed his eyes shut, releasing more pent-up tears. “I wish things had been different.”

“Trust me, I do too. Grian shouldn’t have had to be in that position in the first place, but he made his decision like the selfless person he was.” Etho placed his hand on Beans’s shoulder. “He was a hero.” 

There was nothing else Beans could say. Nothing anyone could say to make everything okay again. No way of bringing Grian and the other friends they’d lost back to life. But despite all the deaths and horror they had seen and experienced, one thing shined above the darkness: the fact that he and Etho were alive. 

Thanks to Grian, they had survived.


	10. A Self-Report

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bdubs and Etho try to carry out their imposter tasks without getting caught

The very first thing Etho decided to do was head to electrical to see if he could get an early kill. When he got there, however, he saw three people already in there, including his partner in crime. He sauntered up to join the others and stood at the distributor calibration task. 

Instead of doing the task, however, Etho used his tablet to discreetly shut and lock the doors behind them. 

Scar spun around immediately. “Hey, someone’s locking us in already!”

As Beans started to turn as well, Bdubs drew his gun and shot him through the back. 

At almost the exact same time, Etho swiftly stabbed Scar in the chest. 

Apart from an eerily similar gasp of pain, neither Beans nor Scar made a sound as their bodies fell to the ground. 

Bdubs immediately turned and jumped into the vent, but Etho stayed just long enough to set off the O2 sabotage before he followed his partner through the vent and up into the deserted medbay. 

“Why’d you do that?” Bdubs demanded. “The door’s already locked; there was no need.”

“A little extra insurance doesn’t hurt,” responded Etho steadily. “Now quickly, we need to go to O2. You take the bottom, I’ll take the top.”

Although Bdubs still didn’t seem happy, he followed Etho out of medbay and into cafeteria, where the two split up. To Etho’s relief, only one person was at the top oxygen: Pungence, already entering the code. He was so engrossed in this task that he didn’t notice Etho advancing on him with his dagger until it was already too late.

As Pungence’s body fell, Etho hit the report button, teleporting everybody to the meeting table. 

“I found Pungence’s body up in O2 right by the keypad,” Etho said, making sure not to let his eyes linger on his partner for too long as he looked around the table. “Someone must’ve got him when he went up to fix oxygen.”

“Okay, this is 100% a self-report,” Tango said, narrowing his eyes at Etho. “Absolutely no doubt.”

“Wait, what?” Etho blinked. “Why would you say that?”

“Because I know how you operate. Not a lot of people here are good enough to pull that off, but you are. You’re smart.”

“Okay, but do you have any actual proof?” demanded Bdubs from across the table. “Or is it another of your famous gut feelings that always turn out wrong?”

Tango turned his glare to Bdubs. “You’re the other one, aren’t you?”

“Oh, come on!” Bdubs growled. “I was at the bottom O2 in admin with two other people who can vouch for me.”

“I can confirm that Bdubs and Skizz were in admin with me, fixing the other oxygen,” said Grian. “Where were you before that, Bdubs?”

“Doing my scan in medbay. I saw Tango on there just before me and it said “waiting for Tango” so I know he’s legit.”

Tango’s suspicious glare melted slightly. “You’re clearing me?”

Bdubs nodded. “Yeah, I saw you do the scan right at the start. Why wouldn’t I tell the truth?”

Tango clearly had no answer to that. “Well, um… thanks.”

_Good move, Bdubs,_ Etho thought approvingly. 

“So do we have anything at all, here?” asked Skizzleman. “If we’re assuming Etho’s not self-reporting.”

“Which we’re not,” said Tango pointedly.

“We don’t have anything concrete,” Grian said. “I came up from storage to do O2 and Skizz was already there.”

“I was already in admin, so I finished my upload and went straight to the keypad,” Skizzleman added.

“Don’t forget that Beans and Scar are also dead,” Tango warned. “And we don’t know where they are, but we can assume that they’re on the other side of the ship and one of the imposters set off oxygen to lead us away from their bodies.” 

“Yeah, but anyone here would be capable of that,” Grian pointed out. “So that’s not really proof.”

Tango just shrugged as the timer started counting down from ten. “Okay, let’s skip, then. But I’m gonna stick with Etho this round, so if I end up dead, it’s him.”

Etho forced himself to smile pleasantly. “Great idea, Tango. You can watch me doing tasks.”

As the meeting concluded, Bdubs watched Etho and Tango head off towards weapons together. He sighed internally, knowing that he would have to pull both his and Etho’s weights now that Etho was being watched by Tango. 

“Hey, Grian,” Bdubs called, seeing the red crewmate standing at the top of the now-empty cafeteria, doing wires. “Can I stick with you for a bit?”

“Sure, but don’t kill me.”

“No, I just-.” Bdubs broke off with an eye-roll. “Who do you think it is?”

Grian thought for a moment as he finished fixing the wires. “Honestly, I think Tango might have a point about Etho self-reporting. He’s chaotic enough to do it and genius enough to pull it off. I think Tango might have sussed him this time.” 

Bdubs sighed in annoyance. “Great.” 

With that, he shot Grian twice through the back and disappeared into a vent.

Elsewhere, Etho could feel sweat dripping down his back as he pretended to fill up the gas tank in storage, as Tango worked away on fixing the wires. His mind raced with various plans and ideas as he wondered how he was going to get out of this one. No matter how many people Bdubs killed, it wouldn’t make a difference if Etho couldn’t escape from Tango long enough to help him. But he couldn’t exactly kill Tango either; everyone had heard Tango say he was going to stick with Etho. So what exactly COULD he do?

Deciding to try and lose Tango, he took off towards the lower engine. Unfortunately, he soon heard Tango behind him, pursuing him. 

“Hey!” Tango snapped, catching Etho’s arm just outside security. “Are you trying to get away from me so you can kill someone?”

“No, I just-.” 

“Come on, I thought you were smarter than that. I guess I’m just giving you too much credit, huh?”

A flash of rage passed through Etho for a single second, but a second was all he needed. Before he could stop himself, he shoved Tango into security and lashed out with his knife, stabbing Tango twice in the stomach. His former friend let out an agonising cry, before dropping to the ground, dead. 

Breathing heavily, Etho panicked as he heard voices coming from down the corridor. He dashed past Tango’s body and opened the vent, but as he did, the door slid shut, locking him and Tango’s body inside security. Ignoring this, Etho slid into the vent and popped up in electrical, where he leant against the wall for a moment to compose himself, before heading out and dashing back through storage and into communications.

To his shock, he discovered Bdubs already there waiting for him, arms crossed. “Not like you to lose your cool, Etho,” he said casually. “What happened?”

“I-I don’t know.” Etho shook his head slightly. “I just lost it, I guess.”

“No kidding. You’re just lucky I sealed the body in security before anyone found it. We need to find someone else to kill before they find it and know immediately who did it.”

“Aren’t there still six of us left?”

“Nope,” Bdubs replied. “Five. I killed Grian in cafeteria a few minutes ago. So if we want any chance of surviving, we gotta get moving. I’ll go past security, you go through cafeteria.”

“Okay.”

The two hurriedly left communications together and raced through storage, again splitting up as they did. When Etho went through cafeteria, he was relieved to see Grian’s body lying under the wires task; clearly it hadn’t been discovered yet. 

As he came across medbay, the last three crewmates appeared from the upper engine. Both parties froze when they spotted each other, on opposite sides of the entrance to medbay. 

“Etho, where’s Tango?” Impulse demanded. “You’re supposed to be together.”

“He’s in security,” Etho replied truthfully.

He couldn’t help a grin as horrified realisation dawned on Impulse’s face. “No…! You really are the imposter!”

“Perhaps. Why don’t you go see if there’s a body in security?”

“Impulse, don’t!” Skizzleman hissed from behind him. “He’s baiting you!”

“I don’t care!” Impulse’s voice cracked. “He killed Tango!” 

Ren nervously tapped on their shoulders. “G-Guys, we have a problem…!”

The group turned simultaneously to find Bdubs standing on their other side, his gun drawn and a malicious grin on his face. “Hello.”

“What did you do with Grian?” snapped Impulse. 

“Ah, I left his body in cafeteria. If you’d made it just a few feet further, you’d have seen him.” Bdubs gave a mocking shrug. “Oh well. I guess the corridor outside medbay is a good place to die, huh?”

“Just one more kill and we win,” Etho added. “Would you like the honour, Bdubs?”

“Yes. Yes I would.”

With that, he raised his gun and fired a single shot at the group.

The bullet hit Skizzleman in the chest, sending him down immediately. Impulse screamed his best friend’s name and automatically reached out, catching him just before he hit the ground. Dropping to his knees, cradling Skizzleman in his arms, Impulse cried. 

“It’s a-alright, Impulse,” croaked Skizzleman, giving his best friend a weak smile. “I’ll s-see you soon, okay?”

Impulse couldn’t reply. 

Etho and Bdubs watched with grim satisfaction as Skizzleman took in one last shuddering breath, before falling still. Both of them were thinking the exact same thing:

_We won._


	11. Guardian Angels

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After getting double-killed, Tango and Impulse watch over Skizzleman and try to help him survive

It all happened so fast. One minute, Tango and Impulse were together in electrical, getting on with their tasks. The next, Tango heard Impulse scream as a knife was plunged into his back. A split second after, a bullet entered Tango’s chest and his world went black.

“Tango!” came a voice from somewhere above him. “Hey, Tango, wake up!”

Tango slowly opened his eyes and found Impulse’s worried face staring down at him. Frowning confusedly, he sat up, pressing his hand to his chest. “What… happened…? Didn’t… Didn’t I get shot?”

“Uh… about that…” Impulse hesitated. “We’re both dead.”

Tango stared at his best friend with wide eyes. “We’re what?!”

“Dead,” Impulse said patiently. “Ren stabbed me in the back so it must have been Bdubs who got you.” 

“Wha…? Then what’s…?”

“We’re ghosts,” explained Impulse helpfully. “And we’re gonna spend the rest of our existences in this universe on this ship with the ghosts of the other people Bdubs and Ren kill and we’re never gonna be able to see anyone else we know or love ever again.”

Tango blinked several times in rapid succession. “Good god, dude…”

Impulse shrugged. “I just died. I’m feeling a little pessimistic right now.”

“Well, then…” Tango rose unsteadily to his feet, completely unused to the feeling of perpetually floating a few inches off the ground. “This is weird… What are we supposed to do now?”

“Our tasks, I guess. That’s all we can do, right?”

Tango hesitated, a million thoughts and feelings racing through him. He had been killed by someone he thought was his friend, and Impulse was in exactly the same boat. There was no hope for them anymore.

But there was one person left whom Tango loved more than almost anyone else, and he still had a chance. 

“No,” Tango said aloud. “We’re gonna help Skizz survive.”

“Huh?” Now it was Impulse’s turn to stare at his best friend. “What do you mean?”

“We’re dead, Impy. We could do our tasks, but that’s not good enough for me. Skizz is still alive, but he might not stay that way without our help. We can be his guardian angels.”

Impulse frowned. “What exactly can we do to help? We’re dead.” 

“Well, personally, I’d rather try my hardest to save his life than just sit back and watch him get killed without doing anything. Are you with me or not?”

“I-.” Impulse hesitated for only a moment. “I’m with you, Tango. Now let’s go find him, quickly.”

The two floated off towards the cafeteria, noticing that everyone appeared to be assembled around the meeting table.

“I guess someone found our bodies,” observed Impulse. “Let’s see if we can hear what they have to say.”

“-was with Grian in navigation and then shields the whole time,” Skizzleman was saying. 

Grian nodded. “I can confirm that. So if everyone was together, that means one of these pairings are the imposters. We just have no way of knowing which ones.”

“That about sums it up,” agreed Etho. “We don’t have enough info for now, so let’s skip.”

Tango and Impulse exchanged a concerned look as everyone voted to skip. “They don’t have anything,” said Tango disappointedly. “Looks like our deaths are going unavenged.”

“For now,” said Impulse. “Let’s follow Skizz and make sure he’s safe.”

The two ghosts floated after Skizzleman as he headed down to storage after the meeting. Impulse floated away to watch someone else while Tango kept watch over Skizzleman as he was doing wires. 

Then Tango spotted Bdubs coming up from the bottom of storage. 

“No!” Tango snapped, floating in front of Bdubs and shooing him away with both hands. “Shoo! Get outta here! Go find another victim!”

“You don’t look like you can stop me,” Bdubs observed. 

Tango immediately started screaming in Bdubs’s face, and when Impulse rushed over to see what the noise was about, he proceeded to do the same thing. 

Faced with the horrific noise, Bdubs backed away, hands raised. “Alright, alright, alright! Stop it already, I’m GOING! God, is that really necessary?”

“Is what really necessary?” Skizzleman poked his head out from behind the pile of containers in the middle of storage, only to find nobody there. “Oh. I thought I heard Bdubs.”

“Skizz, you’re really not making this any easier on yourself,” sighed Impulse, wishing his best friend could hear him. 

The two followed Skizzleman from storage towards shields, where Impulse could see three people already there. Bdubs, Ren, and Beans.

“No, no, no, he’s gonna get double-killed!” Impulse gasped, just as their friend passed communications. “We gotta do something! Quickly!”

Without thinking, Tango grabbed the tablet from Skizzleman’s hands and tossed it as hard as he could away from shields.

Skizzleman pursued his tablet and picked it up off the ground, a bewildered look on his face. “Okay, what the hell just happened?”

Impulse stared at his best friend. “What the hell, Tango?!”

“You said “quickly” so I panicked!” Tango yelped. 

“W-Well, I… I guess it worked either way, so…”

Skizzleman turned back towards shields, just in time to witness a splatter of blood flying at the wall and two bodies hitting the ground. He dashed into shields and looked wildly around, spotting the top of Ren’s head disappearing into the vent.

He hit the report button immediately.

As soon as everyone appeared at the meeting table, Skizzleman gasped out, “It’s another double kill! Beans and Pungence are both dead in shields and I saw Ren venting out of there!”

Before Ren could defend himself, Grian burst out, “And Scar is dead too! Oh my God, these imposters are efficient!”

“Yeah, and I’m anything BUT efficient!” Ren said defensively. “I’m definitely not the imposter, guys. I was in communications doing my download; I didn’t see anyone there.” 

“No, you’re lying,” Skizzleman shot back. “I definitely saw you disappearing into the vent. I just wish I knew who your partner was.” 

“Where did you come from, Skizz?” Grian asked. 

“Oh, I was heading to shields from storage. I actually almost made it to shields but I… uh… I realised I had dropped my tablet so I went back twenty feet or so to get it, and when I turned round, I actually saw the murders happen. I just couldn’t see the people committing them. And when I ran into the room, I saw Ren just jumping into the vent.” 

To Tango and Impulse’s relief, the others seemed to believe Skizzleman. Tango beckoned Impulse away from the table and the two floated away a few feet.

“I feel kinda guilty,” admitted Tango. “We may have saved Skizz from being double-killed, but… it feels like Pungence just died in his place.”

Impulse shook his head reassuringly. “Buddy, I hate that Pungence died just as much as you do, but if it hadn’t been him, then it would have been Skizz. And anyway, we couldn’t have known that he would come down that corridor when he did. It was just unfortunate timing.”

Tango nodded slowly, giving a quiet sigh. “Can we really do this, Impy? Can we really save Skizz?”

“Of course we can. And we will.”

Once Ren had been ejected and only four people remained on the ship, Tango and Impulse continued to follow Skizzleman, keeping a wary eye out for Bdubs. They hovered by the entrance to medbay as Skizzleman completed his task in there. 

“Here he comes!” hissed Impulse, spotting Bdubs coming round the corner. 

Tango hurriedly tapped at the buttons on his tablet, willing them to do something, anything, to save his best friend. 

To his utter shock, the doors around medbay slid closed as he pressed the doors button.

Impulse and Tango stared at each other. “I think we can shut doors now,” said the latter slowly. 

“Whoa…” 

Impulse turned and shot a triumphant grin at Bdubs, who glared back at him but was forced to turn away and go back the way he came. 

“Follow him,” Tango said. “Go see who he kills. I’ll keep an eye on Skizz.”

Impulse nodded. “Will do. Good luck.”

“You too.”

Tango followed Skizzleman from medbay, all the way down to electrical through the cafeteria. He was afraid they might bump into Bdubs on the way, but they didn’t see anyone at all. 

As Tango was watching over Skizzleman in electrical now, Impulse flew through the wall, a scared expression on his face. “He killed Etho in reactor and now he’s coming this way,” he reported. “We gotta get Skizz outta here.” 

“Okay, but how?”

Before Impulse could respond, they both spotted Bdubs standing in the doorway to electrical, gun drawn. 

“Hey!” Impulse shouted, flying over to Bdubs and yelling near his ear. “You leave Skizz alone, you murderer!”

Bdubs growled under his breath. “Shut up.”

“MURDERER!” screeched Tango on Bdubs’s other side. “YOU KILLED ME!” 

“WE’RE NOT GONNA LET YOU KILL SKIZZ!” Impulse yelled. 

They continued yelling and screaming until Bdubs finally sank to his knees, pressing his hands against his ears. “ENOUGH!” he screeched. “Leave me alone!”

Skizzleman whirled round in shock. “Wh-What the hell?!”

He spotted the gun in Bdubs’s hand and backed away rapidly. “Oh my god, oh my god, oh my god, oh m-!”

“You can just shut up too!” Bdubs snapped at him. “Shut up and let me kill you!”

As Skizzleman threw up his arms to protect himself, he thought he heard Impulse’s and Tango’s voices screaming, “NO!”

All of a sudden, Skizzleman felt a surge of courage and strength, and he sprang into action. As the gun went off, he ducked under both the bullet and Bdubs’s outstretched arm and scrambled for the door. Imbued with a new sense of determination, he dashed out of the room, heading straight for the emergency meeting button. 

“Yes, Skizz!” Impulse yelled triumphantly, as he and Tango flew after Skizzleman. “Go, buddy, go!”

“He’s not gonna make it!” Tango gasped, spotting Bdubs in hot pursuit, gun still drawn. “Bdubs’s right there!”

“He’ll make it!” Impulse’s finger hovered over his tablet, waiting for the right moment. 

Just as Skizzleman burst into the cafeteria, Impulse hit the button on his tablet, at the same moment as Bdubs fired his gun.

The doors slid shut immediately, blocking the bullet that would have sliced straight through Skizzleman’s neck. 

Bdubs growled in frustration as he skidded to a halt, pounding his fist on the door. “No!”

“YES!” Impulse and Tango high-fived. 

“Good job, Impy!” Tango enthused. “I think he’s gonna be okay from here.”

Impulse nodded. “He should be. But let’s not celebrate just yet; it’s not over ‘til Bdubs gets ejected.” 

Skizzleman slammed his hands down on the emergency meeting button. Immediately, Grian and Bdubs both appeared at the meeting table. 

Grian stared with worry in his eyes at Skizzleman, who was half-draped across the table, his face pale and glistening with sweat. Eyes rapidly fluttering open and closed, he appeared completely exhausted. “Skizz… are you okay?”

Managing to speak through shallow breaths, Skizzleman panted, “Bdubs… tried to… to kill me…” 

“You’re lying,” Bdubs said savagely. “You’re trying to pin this whole thing on me. Well, it’s not gonna work.” 

“G-Grian, I was w-with you the whole first round wh-when Impulse and Ta-Tango were double-killed,” Skizzleman added, gazing at Grian with pleading eyes. “You know I-I’m not the imposter, r-right?”

Grian stared back at him for a moment, before nodding shakily. “I know.”

Bdubs let out a heavy sigh. “Ahh, almost got away with it. If only I’d managed to kill you in electrical.” He turned to Skizzleman, who flinched and turned away. “Skizzle, I hope you know how lucky you are.”

“Lucky?!” Skizzleman spluttered. “How in the nine circles of hell am I LUCKY?!”

“Impulse and Tango have been looking out for you from beyond the grave. I can think of at least three different times when they’ve managed to stop me from killing you. They even managed to figure out how to shut doors to make sure nobody could get near you.”

Skizzleman paled even further, pressing his fist to his mouth in an effort to stop himself from crying. “What…? How… How do you know?”

“Because imposters can see and hear the ghosts of their victims,” Bdubs replied. “They’ve been working against us this whole time, all because they wanted to save you. That moment back in admin? They were screaming in my ears, distracting me from killing you. And if they hadn’t shut the door to cafeteria just now, it would’ve been over in a second. They’ve been watching over you this whole time.”

After a moment, Skizzleman squeezed his eyes shut, releasing pain-filled tears. “Which one did you kill?” he asked quietly.

Bdubs dropped his gaze. “Tango.”

“Then this…” Skizzleman lifted a shaky finger over the voting screen. “...is for Tango.”

With that, he locked in his vote for Bdubs, and Grian did the same. 

As Grian took Bdubs to the airlock, Skizzleman sat down heavily against the meeting table, tears pouring freely down his cheeks. 

Impulse and Tango knelt down on either side of him and wordlessly enveloped him in a hug. And though Skizzleman may not have been physically able to feel them do it, he could certainly feel their waves of loving energy, and he knew that everything Bdubs had said about them was true.

“Thank you, guys,” he whispered. “I love you both so much.” 

And even though he was now alone in the cafeteria, he could almost hear two voices say it back to him.


	12. Voices In My Head

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Imposter Pungence makes a potentially fatal mistake (based on Skizzleman’s 7th February episode)

“Okay, Skizz didn’t kill anyone that time,” said Tango, looking around at the other three people’s faces around the table. “So it’s Pungence or Etho.”

“It’s Pungence,” said Etho.

“It’s Etho,” said Pungence.

Tango scoffed. “Wow, never saw THAT coming. What’s your gut saying, Skizz?”

Skizzleman groaned. “I’m so torn. Etho, say some words for me, buddy.”

“Quickly,” added Tango.

After a long pause, Etho’s high-pitched voice said, “Hey, everybody…!”

“It’s Etho!” yelped Skizzleman, voting for the cyan crewmate. “I’m voting Etho; I might be wrong!”

Tango hurriedly locked in his vote as well. “Oh, please be right!” 

Etho didn’t dare look as the votes were revealed. After a moment, he peeked through his hands and was both shocked and relieved to find that, despite Tango and Skizzleman voting for him, he was safe. Both he and Pungence had voted to skip.

“Oh no!” Skizzleman gasped. “He’s gonna kill us!”

Etho narrowed his eyes. “Okay, I’m suspicious of you, now, Skizz.”

“Of course you are. Quick, everyone stay away from him!”

At that moment, the O2 alarm went off. Etho immediately rushed for the lower one, while the other three ran up and around to O2. After he’d entered the code, Etho took off after his friends, catching up with them in the corridor outside O2. 

Meanwhile, Pungence was starting to become disoriented from the yelling that only he could hear. He now had the voices of Grian, Bdubs, and Beans chanting, “KILL! KILL! KILL!” in his ears, as well as Impulse’s voice yelling indistinctly amid the din. 

Finally, he couldn’t take it anymore. He drew his gun and, without hesitating, shot Tango in the back, sending him down immediately. 

He wasn’t fully aware of what had just happened until the report alarm flashed and everyone was teleported to the table. Pungence stared across the table at Skizzleman and Etho, realisation dawning in his mind. He had just killed someone right in front of the other two crewmates on the ship.

As soon as they all appeared at the table, Skizzleman dissolved into laughter.

“Okay…” Pungence hesitated, knowing he had to say something, and quickly. “I had some voices in my head… I don’t think they understood what was going on…”

As Skizzleman continued to laugh helplessly, Etho leant forward on the table, a grin hiding behind his mask. “Really? What were they telling you?”

“Well…” 

Pungence screwed up his face as he tried to think desperately for something to say, some explanation for the incident that had just taken place. But try as he might, he just couldn’t do it. 

“Just do what you gotta do,” he chuckled bitterly. 

Skizzleman gasped for breath through his laughter. “Oh, man! It was you, right, Pungence?”

Pungence stared at him. “Wait, what?”

“I-I think I blinked, or something; it all happened so fast. It- It had to be you, right?”

“No, it- it was Etho!” Pungence’s heart leapt at the opportunity. “You didn’t see it?! It must have been Etho!”

Skizzleman groaned and buried his face in his hands. “Agh, I should have been paying better attention!” He turned to his friend. “Etho, say stuff!”

Half-stunned that Skizzleman somehow hadn’t seen what had happened right in front of them, all Etho could manage was, “It wasn’t me, it was Pungence.” 

“No, no, it was Etho!” Pungence burst out. “He did it right in front of you!”

“Dangit, this is all falling on me! I didn’t actually see who did it!” Skizzleman groaned again and threw his arms up. “And right now, Tango’s gotta be yelling his head off at me.”

“YOU’RE GODDAMN RIGHT,” Tango screeched in his best friend’s face. “You’re lucky I’m a ghost or I’d kick your ass!” 

Impulse gently took hold of Tango’s arms and pulled him away from Skizzleman. “Buddy, he can’t hear you.”

Tango strained against Impulse’s grip, jabbing his transparent finger at his alive best friend. “Skizz, if you eject Etho, I swear to God, I’m gonna kill you when you get here!” 

Skizzleman’s distress was starting to get the better of him. “Etho, say more words! Please!”

“I cleared the other O2, Skizz,” Etho said quickly. “All three of you went to the other one so all I would’ve had to do if I was the imposter was just stand there in admin and do nothing.”

Skizzleman stared at Etho. “You DID clear the other O2. That’s right…” 

“Does that help?” Etho asked, somewhat nervously.

“That helps.”

Skizzleman locked in his vote for Pungence, who couldn’t help laughing bitterly. “I was that close. I can’t believe you didn’t see me commit murder right in front of you.”

Etho snorted softly. “Well, I can’t believe you committed murder right in front of two witnesses. What exactly happened there?”

“I had three ghosts screaming “Kill! Kill! Kill!” in my ear over and over again,” said Pungence wearily. “I got so disoriented that I guess I didn’t realise that there were still four of us left, not three.”

“Hey!” snapped Tango suddenly. “Tell Skizz he’s an idiot.”

Pungence heaved a sigh. “Skizzle, Tango says you’re an idiot.”

Skizzleman blinked in surprise. “Wait, you can still hear the ghosts?”

“Uh huh. So ghosts, if there’s anything you want to tell your friends, you got ten seconds before I’m ejected.”

Tango paused for a moment, before sighing. “Tell Skizz he’s still an idiot… but Impulse and I are proud of him.”

Pungence relayed this message to Skizzleman, who laughed awkwardly and rubbed the back of his neck. “Thanks, guys… Sorry I almost blew it.”

Tango crossed his arms, but Impulse’s reassuring hand on his shoulder caused him to relax. He gave his best friend a fond smile. “At least you survived, buddy.” 

As the timer hit zero, the ghosts watched Etho take Pungence to the airlock. 

Grian turned to Bdubs, who was watching with a sad and conflicted expression on his face. “You alright, there, Bdubs?”

The brown-clad crewmate nodded slowly. “I’ll be fine. It won’t get any easier to deal with, but hey… At least he can’t hurt anyone else anymore.”

“And in the end, he only has himself to blame for his own death,” Tango added. “If he’d just voted for Etho at the meeting before I died, he would’ve won when he killed me.”

“Yeah,” said Bdubs numbly. “I guess he would have.”

As the ghosts all floated together for a group hug, Skizzleman and Etho stood together by the cafeteria window, the last two survivors of a massacre that had claimed eight lives all in all. And even though they had had to witness one of their friends murdering another, one thing was very clear in their minds. 

_I’m alive._


	13. What Brothers Do

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bdubs tries to protect his brother

Bdubs had just finished his third task in communications when he heard a scream from outside. He dashed out into the hallway but before he could do anything else, a body was reported and he was teleported to the meeting table alongside everyone else. 

Pungence, who had the megaphone next to him, had a haunted look in his eyes. “I just saw Tango kill Impulse right in front of me!”

“No, no!” protested Tango immediately. “Pungence did it and then self-reported!”

“No, Pungence is telling the truth,” said Grian immediately. “I was on security cams and I saw Tango kill Impulse just inside admin. Pungence ran up a second later.” 

Tango let out a low growl. “Damn cameras,” he muttered. “Always the goddamn cameras.” 

“Gotcha!” Bdubs crowed. “Busted!”

Tango glared at him. “Shut up.”

Bdubs grinned smugly back. “Hey, I’m not the one who forgot about the very obviously-placed cameras, buddy boy.” 

“Oh, just vote me out already.”

“With pleasure.” 

After the meeting had concluded and Tango had been voted out, Bdubs approached Pungence, seeing his brother still standing at the table, eyes staring down into nothing. 

“Hey,” he said quietly. “How are you doing?”

“I… I’m scared,” admitted Pungence. “I just saw someone I thought was my friend murdering someone I cared about a lot, and I’ve no idea who’s gonna be next.”

“Well, it’s not gonna be you or me; not if I have anything to say about it.” Bdubs briefly gripped his brother’s shoulder. “I’m gonna protect you, alright? That’s what brothers do.”

Pungence gave a small smile. “Thanks. I feel better knowing you’re looking out for me. But promise me you’ll be careful, okay?”

“Sure thing. What tasks have you got now?”

Pungence quickly checked his list of tasks. “Umm… I got Simon Says.”

“Perfect, I’ll take you there.”

The brothers headed over from cafeteria to reactor, passing only Grian on their way. Bdubs stood near the door, arms folded like a nightclub bouncer, as Pungence stood at the console, doing his task.

After a while, Bdubs heard Pungence mutter, “Dangit! Ugh…”

“What is it?” Bdubs called over his shoulder.

“Sorry, I messed it up on the last one. I gotta start again.”

“It’s okay, take your time.” 

Realising that he had a task in security, Bdubs trotted across the hallway and started fixing the wires just outside, keeping an eye on both Pungence inside reactor and up and down the corridor. 

When he had finished, he went back into reactor and found Pungence still at the console. 

“I’m sorry, I keep getting it wrong,” his brother said, sounding distressed. “I’ve failed three times now. I just keep thinking someone’s about to run in and stab me…”

“Hey, it’s okay, really.” Bdubs gave his brother a reassuring smile. “I’m protecting you. Nobody’s gonna hurt you while I’m here.”

Pungence managed a smile back. “Th-Thanks.”

Bdubs stood back and kept watch again as Pungence finally made it through Simon Says, beaming proudly. “Thank goodness. I hate that one.”

Bdubs chuckled. “Now you don’t have to do it again. So do you have anything in electrical?”

“Uh… no. I have the scan in medbay and that’s it.”

“Ah, okay. I’ve got the spinney task in electrical, so why don’t I do that then meet you in medbay?”

Pungence nodded happily. “Sounds good. But can you be quick? I’m a little nervous on my own.” 

His brother nodded back. “Of course. See you there, Pungey.”

The two separated. 

Bdubs dashed into electrical and up to his task, intending to complete it as soon as possible so he could rush back to his brother. 

However, he heard a noise at the doorway so he quickly lowered the screen. 

He only just had time to register Scar standing less than three feet away from him, a gun aimed directly at him, before there was a loud gunshot and Bdubs’s world went black. 

Bdubs gasped as he jerked into a sitting position. With a cold feeling of dread hanging over him, he slowly stared down at his hands and realised with horror that his entire body was transparent. 

He was dead. 

Immediately, his thoughts jumped to Pungence. He scrambled to his feet and dashed off towards the centre of the ship, straight through the walls. Looking frantically around, he burst through the wall to the medbay and found his brother just hopping onto the scanner. 

“Pungence!” Bdubs yelled desperately. “Can you hear me? Pungey!” 

But his brother showed no signs of being able to hear him, to his dismay. 

Then he spotted something that would have made his heart stop if he was still alive. 

“PUNGENCE!” Bdubs floated frantically around his brother, trying to get him to notice Scar standing in the doorway, gun drawn. “Look out! Please, look behind you! BEHIND YOU!”

After a few more seconds, Pungence happily stepped off the scanner and turned, finally spotting Scar. He gasped and started to back away. 

But it was too late. 

BANG! 

“NOOO!” Bdubs screamed. 

Pungence let out a cry and sank to the ground, blood spurting from the wound in his chest. 

Bdubs dropped down by his brother’s side but as a ghost, there was nothing he could do to help. He couldn’t even comfort his brother in his dying moments. 

Pungence choked, quietly gasping for breath as he struggled to cling to life. But his wound was just too severe.

Bdubs hung his head and sobbed as his little brother took his last breath. Even as Pungence’s ghost sat up, Bdubs couldn’t bring himself to look at him and be reminded of his failure. 

“Bdubs?” Pungence croaked. “Am I… Are we… d-dead?”

With his face buried in his hands, all Bdubs could do was nod. 

After a moment, Pungence reached out and wrapped his arms around his brother.

“I’m so sorry,” Bdubs choked through his tears. “I tried to save you b-but I… I c-couldn’t…”

“It’s okay,” his brother whispered, his own eyes glistening. “It’s okay. We’re together again now. That’s all that matters.” 

“No. No, y-you should have lived. You were supposed to survive.” His voice cracked. “I-I was supposed to save you!” 

“Bdubs, I would rather be a ghost with you than have to live life without you,” said Pungence quietly. “At least we’re together.”

Finally, Bdubs allowed himself to relax into his little brother’s embrace. “I love you, Pungey.”

Pungence closed his eyes.

“I love you too, Bdubs.”


	14. Playing Detective

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Detectives Grian and Ren reunite to solve the mystery and find the imposters

Beans and Pungence had been the first two to be killed. Unfortunately, nobody saw anything incriminating and there was no real evidence apart from a missing alibi or two, so the meeting concluded with no result. 

As everyone split up after the meeting, Ren approached Grian at the wires task at the top of the cafeteria. “Hey, dude? You wanna buddy up?”

Grian shot Ren a suspicious look. “How do I know you’re not gonna just use me as an alibi and eventually kill me?”

“Okay, we can clear each other first. Do you have medbay scan?”

“Yeah.”

“Me too,” said Ren in relief. “We should be able to see each other do it.”

“Okay…”

After he had connected the remaining wires, Grian followed Ren to medbay, where the two took turns to watch each other on the scanner. “Okay, so it should say “waiting for Rendog” there, right?” Ren said.

Grian nodded. “It does.”

“Good good. Now you get on.”

Ren hopped off without finishing his scan and let Grian step on. When he tried to use the scanner, it said “waiting for Grian”.

“Excellent!” Ren beamed. “That’s two people we can rule out straight away.”

Grian shot his friend a bemused grin. “Why exactly are you so determined to stay with me?”

Grinning back, Ren pulled out a tweed hat from his pocket and dropped it casually onto his head. “Because, my dear sir, I recall a time long ago when the two of us were detectives, hot on the trail of a mysterious prankster. And I have a feeling this ship will require our services.” 

He took out another hat and offered it to Grian, who took it and turned it over in his hands. “Have you really had two of those hats in your pocket the whole time?”

“Yup! So are you in?”

After a moment, Grian swept the hat onto his head. “Hell yeah. Let’s do it.”

Ren beamed triumphantly. “Yes! We’ll be the best detective duo ever. So let’s get on with our tasks at top speed so we can-.”

“Tasks? Nah,” said Grian dismissively, heading towards the door. “There’s no real point, is there? They’re just kinda there to give you an alibi but we can alibi each other.”

“No tasks?” Ren’s face fell as he trotted to catch up with his friend. “But we-.”

“Really, dude, even if we sprint from one task to another, three people could have died by then. Someone might already be dead in the time we spent there in medbay. Now come on, we gotta get to security.”

Ren tried to say something else but Grian had picked up the pace and he had to break into a run to catch up with him. “Can I at least do Simon Says in reactor while I’m here?”

Grian turned into security and activated the security cameras. Already scanning them with a professional eye, he said, “Sure thing, if you don’t wanna solve the mystery.” 

Ren hesitated, dithering outside security. Groaning quietly, he joined Grian at the cameras, pretending not to notice Grian’s triumphant smirk. “Okay, so what’s the plan?”

“The plan, my friend, is you’re gonna go out there and spy on people while I keep watch in here.”

“Wait, what?” Ren blinked. “So I do all the dangerous legwork while you stay up in here all cosy and safe?”

Grian shrugged. “If you don’t wanna solve it, that’s fine.” 

Ren crossed his arms. “You can’t use that as a threat every time, Grian.”

“Yes I can.”

“It’s not gonna work on me again.”

“Yes it will.” 

After a moment, Ren sighed and left the room. 

Grian grinned to himself. 

He spent the next few minutes scanning the camera feed. He saw Ren a couple of times and a few other people wandering around the ship to get to their tasks, but even with a detective’s eye, he couldn’t see anything wrong or suspicious. 

Just then, movement on one of the cameras caught his eye. He just had time to spot Ren sprinting up from lower engine before his friend came literally tumbling into security, ending up in a heap on the floor, panting hard. 

“I tripped over my own feet,” Ren gasped out, lying face-down on the floor. “Impulse is gonna kill me.”

“Not entirely sure those two statements are related, but whatever.” Grian crouched down excitedly beside his friend. “What did you see? What did Impulse do?”

“V-Vented. I was just w-walking into electrical and I saw Impulse d-disappear into the vent.”

“And you came here instead of pressing the button? Why?”

“I was g-gonna go press it but I saw Impulse hanging around the cafeteria and I got nervous. I don’t know if he’s still on cooldown or not.” Ren pushed himself into a sitting position, still breathing heavily. “Oh boy, my chest hurts. I’ve never run that fast in my life.” 

Grian shook Ren excitedly by the shoulder. “You did it, though! You found one of the imposters! Now, let’s go press the button before-.”

As if on cue, the emergency meeting alarm sounded and the two were abruptly teleported to the meeting table alongside everyone else.

Immediately, Impulse said, “I saw Ren vent.”

Ren gaped at him, shocked into silence.

“No you didn’t,” said Grian savagely. “HE saw YOU vent. You’re lying to cover it up.”

Impulse met his gaze steadily. “Then why didn’t he push the button?”

Grian opened his mouth to respond, but realised quickly that his answer wouldn’t look very good so he closed it again. 

“I got nervous!” Ren finally managed to shake himself out of his stupor. “I saw you hanging around in here and I didn’t wanna get murdered! Plus, Grian can clear me.”

Grian nodded. “That’s right. Ren and I cleared each other on the med scan.”

“Or you’re in on it together,” said Tango pointedly. “Why should we believe you over Impulse? It’s his word against yours, AND he has the advantage of having called the meeting.”

Ren started to panic. He had been so confident, so assured less than ten minutes ago, and now he was about ten seconds away from being ejected into space. 

“You just gotta trust me,” he said finally. “It IS my word against Impulse’s, but Grian is backing me up.”

“Yeah, he fled into security and tripped over his own feet,” said Grian. “He was scared out of his mind.”

“You didn’t have to mention that, G,” muttered Ren sheepishly. 

“Okay, I’m sold,” said Bdubs, locking in his vote. 

As everyone else started to vote, Ren flinched and covered his eyes, not daring to look at the votes.

After a few seconds, Grian nudged him sharply. “Dude, you’re safe. Don’t worry.”

Ren peeked at the screen. Three votes for him, four votes for Impulse, one skip. 

“Oh, I might faint,” he murmured. 

“Don’t do that,” said Grian amusedly. “We’ve got another imposter to catch.”

“No, no, no.” Ren shook his head firmly. “I’m done playing detective. I’m gonna do what I should have done from the beginning: my tasks.”

“What, you’re just giving up?” Grian demanded. “So easily?”

“Easily?! Grian, I was nearly ejected into space thirty seconds ago! We’ve got one imposter; isn’t that enough?”

Grian stared at his friend in disbelief. “No, of course not! There’s still one imposter left and more people are gonna die if we don’t do anything.”

“YOU can do it,” said Ren, jabbing his finger at Grian. “YOU are very welcome to run around the ship like a headless chicken and potentially get yourself killed or ejected. Me, I’ve learned my lesson.”

With that, he turned and walked away, ignoring Grian calling his name. He sat down at the laser gun in weapons and started shooting down the asteroids, but his mind wasn’t fully on the task. Despite telling Grian he was done being a detective, his brain was racing with information, ideas, and theories. 

Of the six people left, he knew two of them were innocent straight away: himself and Grian. He had noticed Tango sticking up for Impulse when Ren had accused him of venting, but that was likely just because of their prior friendship. After all, Tango had been the first one at reactor with Ren to stop the meltdown and save the ship. 

And of course, during that meeting, a couple of people had been very quiet. Skizzleman hadn’t said anything at all, which was very out of character for him, but he was the only person who had voted to skip, which would have been a very stupid move if he was an imposter. 

That only really left Scar and Bdubs. The former hadn’t said anything at the meeting either, but that was usual for him. Bdubs, on the other hand, also hadn’t been as vocal as normal, which, like Skizzleman, was rather out of character. 

But what did it all mean? 

Finally, he abandoned the asteroids task halfway through and moved on to navigation, the cogs still turning in his mind. 

Beans’s and Pungence’s deaths had almost certainly been a double kill. Where had everybody said they were during that time? 

As he went over everyone’s alibis, he realised that one person had said they were alone, very close to where the bodies had been discovered. 

“Hey, Ren,” came a friendly voice at that moment. 

Ren jumped, realising his download had finished already. He turned and found Bdubs smiling at him from the navigation seat, charting a course for the ship. 

“What’s up, Ren?” Bdubs asked, frowning. “You look pale.”

“I-I need to find Grian,” said Ren shakily. 

With that, he took off out of navigation and hurtled through the ship at top speed, heading for security, where he felt sure his detective friend was. 

However, he actually bumped into Grian in the hallway outside electrical. 

“Grian!” Ren gasped. “Are you okay?”

“Ren, thank god.” Grian seemed just as distraught as Ren himself. “Have you seen Bdubs?”

Ren nodded. “He was back there in navigation with me. Have you seen Scar?”

“No,” said Grian shakily. “And that’s entirely the problem. I overheard him say earlier that his strategy if he was the imposter would be to hide in a vent until someone comes past and then kill them.” 

“What? That’s such a stupid idea!”

“I know, but it also makes him very dangerous. We gotta find him, fast.”

As Grian started moving away, Ren reached out and caught his wrist to stop him. “Should we push the button?” 

Grian hesitated. “Okay, you wait by the button and count to sixty. If you don’t see or hear from me after a full minute, press the button.”

Ren stared at him. “Are you sure?”

“Yes, now go!”

Despite his better judgement, Ren took off running towards the meeting table. Planting his feet firmly on the ground, he held both his hands over the button and started to count to sixty. 

One. Two. Three.

_I hope Grian’s going to be okay… If Scar kills him after all we’ve been through, I don’t know what I’m gonna do._

Fifteen. Sixteen. Seventeen.

_This is absolutely terrifying. I don’t know where anyone is and for all I know, there might only be two of us left alive at this point._

Twenty-four. Twenty-five. Twenty-six.

_Maybe I should just push the button right now. It might be better than to wait and risk Grian dying._

Thirty-seven. Thirty-eight. Thirty-nine.

_Was that movement over there?! ...no, no it wasn’t. I don’t think so, at least. Oh jeez, Grian, where are you…?_

Forty-five. Forty-six. Forty-seven. Forty-.

Closing his eyes, Ren slammed his hands down on the button. 

He waited a few seconds before slowly opened his eyes, wondering who he would see. 

Bdubs. Tango. Scar. Skizzleman. And…

“Oh, Grian, I was so worried,” Ren gasped. “Did you find anything?” 

Grian shook his head. “No, nothing. But everyone, I think it’s Scar. We should vote him out.”

“What?” yelped Scar. “Why?!”

“We know that Impulse was one of them,” explained Grian. “So we should look at the two other people who voted for Ren. Tango and Scar.”

“We can clear Tango straight away, though,” Ren added quickly. “He was the first one in reactor fixing it, which he wouldn’t have done if he was imposter. Plus, Scar was the only one who didn’t have an alibi for the double kill.”

“No, wait, what about Skizzleman?” demanded Scar. “He didn’t have one either.”

“It’s not me!” Skizzleman protested.

“It’s not him,” Grian confirmed. “He voted to skip the last vote, which would’ve been a stupid move for an imposter, considering one more vote for Ren would have saved Impulse from ejection.”

Ren nodded approvingly, glad that his detective partner had picked up on this as well.

“No offense, G, but this is kinda flimsy evidence,” Skizzleman said apologetically. “I mean, I do believe you, but…” 

“No but listen, we KNOW we’ve got one imposter out,” said Grian. “We can afford to vote Scar out and be wrong. If by some miracle Scar isn’t one, the last remaining imposter would still need to kill four people. We can afford to be wrong, here.”

“But I don’t think we are,” Ren added. “The evidence we have might be circumstantial, but it’s the best we have, and it points to Scar. I’m voting for him.”

He and Grian locked in their votes at the same time. Scar voted less than a second later, though for who, Ren didn’t know. 

Tango, Skizzleman, and Bdubs followed soon after. 

The votes were revealed. Grian, Ren, Skizzleman, and Bdubs had voted for Scar, while Tango voted for Ren and Scar voted for Grian. 

Scar growled. “Damn Impulse. Getting himself caught like that.”

Tango looked away, closing his eyes in anguish. 

As Skizzleman and Bdubs took Scar to the airlock, Ren and Grian gave each other wide grins. “Congrats, Detective Grian. You’ve solved the case again.”

“WE solved the case, Detective Ren,” said Grian, holding up his hand. 

Ren high-fived him. 

“Hey, Ren.” Tango approached them carefully, a slightly sheepish look on his face. “I’m sorry for accusing you. I guess I just didn’t want to believe it was Impulse.”

“Aw, no worries, man.” Ren gave his friend a reassuring smile. “We got them in the end. But also,” he added, turning to Grian, “let’s not do that again, huh? We don’t wanna get ejected for not doing our tasks.”

Grian snickered. “Okay, okay. Fair enough.”


	15. Scar

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Grian and Scar are the imposters. After a stupid mistake early on, Grian is ejected. He is resigned to their loss, knowing the chances of Scar being able to get to the end of the game without him are next to none. But he soon realises that Scar can be very, VERY dangerous when he wants to be.

The first kill was supposed to be easy. And for a single precious minute, it was perfect. Grian walked into navigation and killed Beans with no problems whatsoever, before jumping into the vent. 

However, it seemed he had chosen the wrong time and place to pop out; when he did, he found himself face to face with Bdubs, Skizzleman and Etho, who had just exited cafeteria and come into weapons. 

For a second, the two parties just stared at each other.

Then Skizzleman let out a screech and he and Bdubs dashed back into cafeteria.

Grian didn’t bother to follow them. There was no point and he knew it.

Sure enough, at the inevitable emergency meeting, Bdubs and Skizzleman immediately started talking excitedly at the same time about what they had seen. 

“Whoa, whoa, guys!” interrupted Tango. “Calm down and breathe! What happened?”

“Grian vented,” Skizzleman panted, clearly out of breath. “We saw him. Three of us saw him.”

“Bdubs, Skizz, and I just came out of cafeteria into weapons and saw him pop his head out of the vent,” Etho explained more coherently. “He must’ve killed Ren or Beans somewhere and vented, looking for another victim, but we caught him.” 

All eyes turned to Grian. 

Grian sighed, knowing that they were all expecting him to deny it. But with THREE eye-witnesses, it would be foolish to make up a story. The only way to protect his partner now was to confess. “It’s true. I killed Beans in navigation and vented out. Poor timing on my part.” 

“No kidding!” Bdubs snorted. “That was pathetic, Grian. You got caught red-handed!”

“I know,” Grian growled. 

“What, you’re not even gonna try to deny it?” Tango asked incredulously.

“Look, if it was only two of them who saw me, I would’ve at least tried to claim they’re both the imposters and trying to frame me, but THREE witnesses? There’s no way I would’ve gotten away with that.” 

Grian despondently voted for himself and didn’t put up a fight as he was taken to the airlock after the unanimous vote. 

Waking up back on the ship as a ghost, he sighed heavily and watched Scar run around the ship. 

_That’s it. We’re gonna lose. There’s no way Scar can kill FIVE people all by himself without getting caught._

He set off the reactor from the afterlife and watched everyone converge to fix it. After it had been repaired and everyone else had left, Scar hung behind in reactor and killed Tango as the latter was attempting Simon Says, before running out as if nothing had happened.

_They’re gonna know he was the last one out,_ Grian groaned in his head. _Oh, this is the WORST._

He followed Scar down through lower engine, past electrical, and out the other side of storage. Scar stood next to Etho at the download screen in communications, before killing him too and immediately hitting the report button.

Grian gasped. _He’s self-reporting! That’s RISKY, considering everyone always gets sus of him when he reports, whether he’s imposter or not!_

“I found Etho in communications,” Scar reported.

“Oh, and it looks like Tango’s down too,” added Bdubs. “Where did you say Etho is, Scar?”

“Communications. Next to the download thingy.”

“Did you see anyone around?” inquired Impulse.

Scar shook his head. “I didn’t see anyone else after we all left reactor.” 

“I went off on my own too,” Skizzleman admitted. “I only saw Impulse briefly as I passed admin, but that was a while ago.”

“Can anyone vouch for anyone?” asked Impulse.

Everyone shook their heads. 

“Well, wonderful,” Impulse sighed. “I guess we can’t vote anyone this round.”

Skizzleman patted his friend on the shoulder. “Don’t worry, there’s six of us left. The last imposter still has to kill four of us before they win.”

Grian sighed with relief as the meeting ended with everyone voting to skip. He wasn’t sure how Scar had managed to get through another meeting without being labelled sus, but Grian certainly wasn’t going to complain.

“Hey, Skizzle!” Scar called, trotting to catch up with the blue crewmate, who was heading towards medbay. “What task have you got now?” 

“I gotta eat fruit,” said Skizzleman, as if that explained everything.

Scar frowned. “What?”

“Simon Says,” Skizzleman explained with a grin. “If I say “make sure to eat fruit” while I’m doing the task, it helps me make fewer mistakes.”

“Oh, I see! Very clever. You mind if I come with? I gotta count to ten.”

“Sure thing!”

Grian followed the two over to reactor, knowing what was coming. Sure enough, Scar approached Skizzleman while he was in the middle of Simon Says.

“This is for Grian,” he said coldly, before shooting Skizzleman in the back. 

Grian stared at Scar as the latter hurriedly left reactor. He was starting to get the feeling that Scar might actually be able to pull this off. 

But he didn’t want to get too ahead of himself yet. Scar was only halfway through; he still had to kill three more people. Around this point, Scar’s luck usually ran out. 

Just as Grian started to sabotage something to help out, the body was reported by Pungence. 

“Self-report,” Scar declared immediately.

Grian hid his face in his hands. _NO, Scar!_

But to his surprise, nobody immediately turned on his partner. 

“Well, Bdubs and I were together,” Impulse said. “So it must be either Pungence or Scar.”

“Pungence,” said Scar.

“Scar,” said Pungence at the same time.

“We can’t really afford to not vote someone out, here,” Bdubs said, glancing at Impulse. “I’m voting Scar.”

Impulse, who had just locked in his own vote, blanched. “Oh, I voted for Pungence.”

“Oh no!”

Sure enough, as the votes were revealed, both Scar and Pungence had two votes each. 

Grian was absolutely dumbfounded. He had been sure that that was the end for Scar, but somehow, his partner had survived. 

_He really might actually do it…!_

“I’m gonna do my task in security,” declared Pungence. “Someone come watch me.”

“I will,” said Bdubs immediately. 

After the meeting, Grian followed Scar to the right, watching him as he ran all the way from weapons, down to shields, then across to electrical, clearly looking for a victim. 

“Two more kills,” murmured Grian, despite knowing Scar couldn’t hear him. “Just two more. Come on.”

Scar entered security and found Bdubs on the monitors. He turned as Scar came in. “Scar! Don’t kill me!”

Scar drew his gun.

A real look of terror appeared on Bdubs’s face as he backed away from Scar as far as he could go. 

An identical evil smile spread over Grian’s and Scar’s faces as the latter towered over Bdubs.

“Scar, p-please…!” Bdubs’s eyes were wide with fear. “Please, I-!”

BANG!

Grian cheered as Bdubs’s body hit the ground. “Scar! You absolute legend! One more kill and we win!”

Realising he needed to help keep the remaining crewmembers away from Bdubs’s body, he shut the door to security and stayed there, intending to keep watch. He didn’t need to follow Scar around this time.

After a few minutes, he glanced up and found both Impulse and Scar on their way down from medbay. He realised that Scar had likely vented into medbay and was now discreetly leading a witness to the body as an alibi.

So he quickly reopened the doors.

Impulse walked into security, with Scar right behind him. The two yelped simultaneously at the sight of the body.

Grian floated over to join the report meeting that Impulse had quickly called. 

“Bdubs is dead in security,” reported Impulse. “Scar and I found him.” 

“Impulse,” said Scar slowly, giving the crewmate in question a pointed look. “Didn’t we hear Pungence say he was going to do his task in security?”

Impulse stared back at him in shock. “Oh… we DID!”

“YES!” Grian screeched, hardly daring to hope. 

“No, no, I left security ages ago,” Pungence quickly said. “I was down in communications.”

Impulse frowned at him. “I didn’t see you that whole time, though. You could have vented to electrical or even just left normally; we don’t know how old the kill is.”

“What about Scar?” demanded Pungence. “How long were you two together?”

“A few minutes. Scar watched me scan in medbay, then Scar stood by me in cafeteria while I finished wires and then we went down to security to do Scar’s last task. He could’ve easily killed me several times but he didn’t.”

“Okay, first of all, he could have been on cooldown,” Pungence pointed out. “And second, “he could have killed me but he didn’t” means nothing to Scar! He’s a wild card; he kills whenever he feels like it.”

“Yeah, but even Scar would realise that one more kill would end the game,” argued Impulse. “Why would he purposefully lead me to a body he killed when he could just take me to a random spot on the ship and kill me with no witnesses?”

Grian couldn’t believe the genius move that Scar was pulling off. Kill in security, “find” the body with a witness, then let Impulse’s penchant for third-impostering take over. Scar didn’t even need to say anything in this meeting; Impulse was doing all the work for him.

And like Impulse had pointed out, Scar could have just stuck with Impulse until his cooldown was over and then killed him. It would have yielded the same result, and been a lot less risky for him as well. But he hadn’t done that. Why? The answer was clear to Grian:

Scar wanted the satisfaction of stabbing Impulse in the back. 

Clearly, Pungence couldn’t believe what he was hearing either. “Impulse, please don’t let him get away with this. He’s playing you for a fool.”

“I don’t think so,” Impulse retorted. “Scar’s a lot of things but he’s not cunning. He wouldn’t be able to come up with a plan this smart. No offense, Scar.”

Scar shrugged. “None taken. I totally agree.”

“Of course you do,” Pungence sighed. “Impulse, please, you have to believe me or we’re gonna lose.”

“It isn’t me!” Scar protested. “C’mon, Impulse, you know it’s not me. You said so yourself: it wouldn’t make any sense.”

Grian held his breath as Impulse glanced from Scar to Pungence.

Finally, he sighed. “You’re right; it wouldn’t. I’m voting Pungence.”

As Impulse locked in his vote, Grian let out a long, triumphant whoop. “Scar, you LEGEND! You’re absolutely brilliant!” 

Pungence buried his face in his hands as the votes were revealed. “Nooo…” 

A grin appeared on Scar’s face as the airlock slowly closed behind Pungence. “Good job, Impulse. You made the right decision.” 

Impulse registered the expression on his face and visibly sagged. “I-I didn’t, did I?”

Grian flew around triumphantly as Scar drew his gun. 

“For me, you absolutely did.”


	16. The Third Imposter

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> When he finds out his best friends are the imposters, Zedaph decides to help them win. No matter the cost.

Zedaph is doing his first task of the round in medbay on his own, when Impulse and Tango enter the room. He turns, smiling at the sight of his best friends. “Hey, guys. Got a task here?”

The two exchange a look. Their lack of an immediate response worries Zedaph.

“Zed…” Tango hesitates. “We, ah… We decided we have to tell you. Impulse and I are… We’re the imposters.”

Zedaph’s stomach lurches. His breath catches in his throat, but he quickly recovers and nods resignedly. “Okay.”

Impulse frowns. “Is that it? You know we’re gonna have to kill people, right…?”

“Then why did you tell me?” Zedaph demands. “Why not just kill me?”

“Because we didn’t think it would be fair,” Tango says. “We want you to know that we’re not going to kill you. You can report us if you want, but… we…”

“We just wanted you to know,” finishes Impulse. “Do with that info what you will.” 

With that, they turn and leave as quickly as they arrived.

Zedaph clenches his fists. Fair? What isn’t fair is that his two best friends are going to spend the entire game viciously killing people, and now Zedaph knows about it. Does he tell the other crewmates? Or does he keep it a secret? Were they even being serious? What if they’re just playing a practical joke on him?

But deep down, however much he wants to believe it, he knows it’s not a joke. 

His thoughts almost overwhelm him as he makes his way to reactor and starts the manifolds task. He can hardly concentrate on counting to ten.

Finally, a body is reported. When Zedaph turns up at the meeting, he sees Tango and Impulse standing together. He knows them well enough that he can tell by the looks on their faces that they are the ones responsible for Scar’s and Skizzleman’s deaths. 

Grian is the one who reported the body. “I found Scar and Skizzle both in communications. All I know is that it has to be a pretty recent kill, cuz I saw Scar alive only a minute or so ago. And it has to be a double kill, obviously.”

“Ren, Bdubs, and I were together in electrical,” reports Pungence. 

“Grian, you and I saw each other by comms a few minutes ago,” adds Etho. “I don’t think it’s you.” 

“Oh, gee, if it’s a double kill, I wonder which pair would know each other well enough to pull off such a well-coordinated move,” says Bdubs sarcastically, pointedly raising an eyebrow at Tango and Impulse. “Lemme guess, you’re gonna alibi each other?”

Tango and Impulse exchange a slightly panicked look, causing Zedaph to make a very quick decision.

Before anyone else can speak again, Zedaph blurts out, “They were with me in reactor.”

All eyes turn to Zedaph. Tango and Impulse frown at him. They know they haven’t seen Zedaph since they told him that they are the imposters. 

Zedaph simply raises an eyebrow back, and they understand. Their best friend is offering them an alibi. 

“Yes,” Tango says quickly. “Zed, Impulse, and I were together in reactor. I messed up Simon Says several times and they waited for me.”

Zedaph knows the others are judging their alibis. It’s only natural for the group of best friends to stick together, but he knows what the others are thinking: “there’s only two imposters, so they must be telling the truth.”

Sure enough, the crewmates accept Team ZIT’s alibi and decide not to eject anyone this round. 

Impulse and Tango try to take their friend aside after the meeting but Zedaph refuses. He heads to admin to do his card swipe task but when he spots Grian alone in there, standing at the admin screen with his back to the door, he gets an idea. 

He runs back out of admin and hits the emergency meeting button. 

“I saw Grian vent,” he says.

“What?!” yelps Grian, his eyes wide. “No I didn’t! What are you talking about?!”

“He popped up in admin,” says Zedaph, avoiding everyone’s gazes. “I was doing the card swipe and I saw him do it.”

Grian frantically shakes his head. “No, I swear, it’s not me! I didn’t even see you in there!”

“Would Grian really be that careless?” asks Etho dubiously.

“Remember he doesn’t vent a lot,” Impulse says, taking a risk. “It’s entirely possible he didn’t mean to pop up in admin when Zed was in there. Or he didn’t notice Zed.”

“No, guys, really, it’s not me!” Grian tries hard to defend himself. “Zedaph is lying!”

“Why would he do that, though?” Ren asks. “We’ve already established he isn’t an imposter. Why would he need to lie about you venting?”

Grian’s mouth opens and closes as he tries to think of a response. All he can think of to say is, “He’s protecting the real imposters.”

“Come on, he wouldn’t do that,” Bdubs says dismissively. “No matter who the imposters are, no crewmate in their right mind would help them. Sorry, Grian, but it looks like you’ve been rumbled this time.” 

Zedaph is pleased that his lie has fooled the other crewmates. 

As everyone votes, however, he spots Etho shooting Impulse a suspicious look. When the votes are revealed, he sees that Etho has even voted for Impulse. 

Zedaph knows he has to do something; Etho clearly suspects his friends. His opinion holds weight in the group, so he can easily turn the ship against them. 

Etho has to go. 

After Grian is ejected, Zedaph pickpockets Impulse, stealing the gun he knows is in Impulse’s pocket, before his best friends head off together towards navigation. 

Zedaph spots Etho leaving in the opposite direction, so he discreetly follows him all the way to security, where Etho starts to do his wires task. 

Without hesitation, Zedaph shoves Etho to the ground inside security. Etho stares up at him with fearful eyes. “Zedaph…” He clears his throat as his voice almost fails him. “You… You’re one of them?”

Zedaph shakes his head. “I’m not. But two people I love are, and I once made a vow to always protect them, no matter what. I can’t let you hurt them.”

He takes out the gun he took from Impulse. His code fights against him; it’s not right for a crewmate to have such a weapon. The game doesn’t like one crewmate turning on another. 

But Zedaph fights back. His finger tightens on the trigger. 

With a single shot, Etho is dead. 

As Zedaph is staring down at the body he killed, Tango and Impulse appear at the door to security. When Impulse realised his weapon was missing, he knew there is only one person who could have taken it. Their shocked eyes flicker from Zedaph to Etho’s body, then back to Zedaph. They can’t believe what they’re seeing. 

“H-How did you do that...?!” chokes Tango.

Zedaph turns to face his best friends. He knows that for them to win, he must die, regardless of whether one of them kills him by their own hand. As there are only five people left on the ship, there is a very easy way to ensure his best friends’ victory. 

He hits the report button. 

Zedaph, Tango, Impulse, Ren, and Bdubs are the only people left on the ship. He looks at the faces around the table and says, “I’m the imposter.”

Everyone stares back at him in shock. “What?” Ren gasps. “You’re just… confessing?”

“Tango and Impulse both walked in on me killing Etho,” says Zedaph. “There’s no point in denying it. And there’s no way I can throw them both under the bus.”

Ren and Bdubs both turn to Tango and Impulse, whose gazes are fixed on their best friend. 

Finally, Impulse nods. “It’s true. We walked into security and saw Etho’s body fall. Zedaph was right there. Right, Tango?”

Tango isn’t happy. As imposter, he’s not supposed to care about anyone except his partner. But nothing will ever change the fact that he loves Zedaph, and for him to be willing to sacrifice his life for theirs, despite their sole objective on the ship being to kill people... It hurts. 

But he also nods. “It’s true.”

The crewmates seem satisfied by this. After all, why confess to a crime you didn't commit?

The decision is unanimous. Everyone has voted for Zedaph.

A grin slowly spreads over Impulse’s face. “You lose.”

Bdubs and Ren glance at each other in a panic, realising now who the real imposters are. “Wait, what?! How?!” spluttered Ren. “Why did he take the blame for your kill?!”

“He didn’t,” says Tango. “What we said in that meeting is true. We walked in on Zed killing Etho.”

“But- But- But-!” Bdubs can hardly speak. “He’s a crewmate!”

Tango grins. “Exactly.”

Bdubs and Ren look to Zedaph, absolutely terrified. They wish they could retract their votes, but it’s too late. It’s way too late.

Zedaph is ejected into space. He lies back and lets the darkness take him, rapidly chewing its way through his spacesuit and into his body.

And as his eyes close for the final time, despite being surrounded by the cold and unforgiving vacuum of space, he smiles. His best friends are alive and they’re safe. 

That’s all that matters to Zedaph.


	17. Powerful Soul

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Zedaph is killed in the first minute of a round and decides to go make the imposter who killed him regret doing so.

Zedaph opens his eyes and finds himself lying on the floor. He sits up, an image of a gun in his face flashing in front of his vision. Something tells him he didn’t survive that encounter. 

He looks down at his hand and finds it transparent. When he gets to his feet, he perpetually hovers a few inches off the ground. He knows now: he’s dead. He’s a ghost. 

“Well,” he says aloud, “this is inconvenient.”

“That is the calmest reaction for someone discovering they’re dead that I have ever seen,” remarks a voice. 

Zedaph turns. 

Skizzleman is across the room, downloading data at the panel. He gives Zedaph a resigned smile. “Hey. We got double killed.”

“Already?” Zedaph frowns. “We only just came in here.”

“That’s what happens when two people who know each other well are imposters together,” says Skizzleman. “Impulse and Tango. Impulse and me. Grian and Etho. Or, in this case, the imposter bros. They kill early and they kill fast. Figures they’d go for us, huh? Easy pickings.”

Zedaph thinks about this for a moment. “So… what do we do now?”

Skizzleman shrugs. “Just keep doing our tasks. The only people who’ll hear us now are the imposters.”

“The imposters can hear us as ghosts?”

“And see us, yeah.” Skizzleman laughs. “I like to go haunt the imposter who killed me with high pitched songs to see if they’ll go crazy. They don’t usually, but hey. It makes me feel bett- Wait, where are you going?”

Zedaph is already halfway out of the room when he stops and turns. “I’m going to find Pungence and make him regret killing me.”

“Ahh, you gonna adopt my high-pitched singing approach?” Skizzleman asks with a grin. 

“No,” says Zedaph simply.

Skizzleman watches him leave, frowning in confusion. He isn’t sure what Zedaph is planning but he does know he’s worried about his newest friend. But he decides to leave Zedaph alone and do his tasks. Whatever Zedaph is up to, Skizzleman doesn’t need to get involved. 

Zedaph finds Pungence in medbay, standing at the sample task. He turns to leave and spots Zedaph, and his face settles in a scowl. “Go away,” he mutters.

Zedaph holds out his hand. The medbay door closes behind him.

Pungence jumps, his eyes slowly widening. “Wait, how did you do that?”

“Let’s have a little chat, shall we?” Zedaph smiles pleasantly. “Pungence, I don’t know you. I know Bdubs, but not you. Why did you kill me?”

“You and Skizzle were just in the wrong place at the wrong time, alright?” snaps Pungence. “Bdubs and I were going round looking for a pair of crewmates to kill and we happened to see both of you alone together in navigation. That’s all.”

Zedaph nods. This is the answer he was expecting. “I see. Are you just evil or is something evil controlling you?”

Pungence blinks. “What?”

“You’re an “imposter”. Does that mean you’re an actual physical copy of Pungence - as in, you’re not the real Pungence at all - or are you actually him but being controlled by some kind of evil parasite?”

“I…” Pungence just stares at him in confusion. “How am I supposed to know? I just know I have to kill people.”

“Interesting.”

Zedaph slowly moves towards Pungence, who backs away rapidly into the wall. “No, no, get away from me. Why haven’t your bodies been reported yet?!”

“Oh, they have,” says Zedaph. “The others are having a meeting as we speak.”

Realisation dawns on Pungence’s face. “You’re trapping me in this room! But- But how?! How did you shut that door? How did you rig it so that I wouldn’t appear at the meeting?”

Zedaph continues floating towards Pungence, who strains to get away from him. “Stay away from me!”

But Zedaph doesn’t listen. He reaches out and phases his ghostly hand into Pungence’s chest. 

Pain shoots through Pungence like electricity in water. He screams, but Zedaph waves his hand and his voice is silenced. Zedaph is looking deep into Pungence’s heart and mind, and it’s absolute agony for him. 

Finally, Zedaph retracts his hand and Pungence drops to his knees, clutching his chest in pain. 

“Whatever you are, your soul is well hidden,” says Zedaph, as if nothing particularly extraordinary is going on. “And if you yourself don’t even know what you are, then maybe your memories prior to landing on this ship have been removed. Maybe you’re a physical clone of the real Pungence with his memories installed in your brain.”

“What are you talking about?!” shrieks Pungence, disoriented from the pain. “Get away from me!” 

Zedaph ignores him. “Let’s see if I can possess you. That’s a thing ghosts can do, right?”

Before Pungence can stop him, Zedaph takes hold of his head, one hand on either side. He can’t stop himself from screaming again as he feels Zedaph’s powerful soul attempting to take over his own. He pushes back, resisting as hard as he can. His soul is powerful too. 

Zedaph cries out as he feels the backlash, and with it, the overwhelming hunger for death fuelling an imposter. 

“Zedaph!” yells Skizzleman’s voice behind him.

Zedaph stumbles back into Skizzleman, clutching his head. He stares at Pungence, who is breathing heavily and warily glaring back at him. “You… You enjoy killing. It fuels you, gives you life. You tear through flesh and bone like they’re made of paper, and you do it without regret or remorse. Whatever you are, you… you’re not human.”

Still holding Zedaph upright, Skizzleman started to back away. “Zed, let’s go. Quickly.”

“No.” Zedaph shook Skizzleman’s hands off him and walks towards Pungence. “You need to be eliminated as soon as possible.”

Pungence reaches for his weapon but stops, remembering it won’t do any good on a ghost. He tries to get away but Zedaph catches him - literally. Eyes wide, he stares down at Zedaph’s transparent hand closed around his wrist. “How are you t-touching me?! You’re dead!”

Zedaph wordlessly reaches for Pungence again, but instead of his chest, this time he goes for his head. 

Skizzleman turns away, flinching at the sound of Pungence’s screams. He’s terrified; not for Pungence’s life but for Zedaph’s soul. Zedaph mentioned how Pungence isn’t human but surely he himself can’t be either, to have this kind of power. Skizzleman may not be very spiritual but even he can feel the power of Zedaph’s soul and he somehow knows his newest friend is special. But all this violence and rage… cannot be good for a soul such as Zedaph’s. 

Zedaph himself, meanwhile, can feel his entire body heating up as it starts glowing with bright white light. He focuses on what he’s doing, unaware of his eyes glowing bright red. The sound of Pungence screaming slowly fades until he can’t hear it anymore; all he can hear is a faint ringing in his ears and the sound of footsteps coming closer and closer until-

Nothing.

...

Pungence opens his eyes and finds himself standing at the meeting table alongside everybody else. He lets himself breathe out, his hands still trembling. Even though the pain itself is long gone, he can still feel Zedaph’s eyes boring into his soul as he tries to destroy his spirit forever.

His gaze fixes on Zedaph, who is chatting happily with Tango as the two head off towards admin. On the other side, Skizzleman is just disappearing into medbay. Neither of them seem to recall what happened last round. Or if they do, they’re not affected by it at all. Not as much as Pungence is.

“Pungey?” Bdubs appears at his side and places a concerned hand on his brother’s shoulder. “You okay?”

Pungence wordlessly nods. He gets the feeling that he should never tell anyone about what happened. Zedaph, who somehow has the power to kill an imposter and immediately end the whole round, spared his life this time. Now he can simply be another crewmate again and do his tasks with his brother.

Next time, he might not be so lucky.


	18. The Werewolf and the Jester

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Zedaph decides to introduce the werewolf and jester mods to his friends

When Zedaph first arrived on this ship for his first ever round of Among Us with his friends, he had assumed that his ability to hack into a game’s code would be utterly useless here. Or, at the very least, that it would take a long time for him to gain access to all the different modifications he knows exist within the game.

Now he knows how wrong he was. 

He senses after a while that the others might be getting bored of the same old routine. Sure, every round is unpredictable. But perhaps it might be time for a slight deviation to make things more exciting and bring back the spark that his friends have for the game.

When the last round ends, Zedaph dives into the library of mods, looking for some roles that might make a fun combination. He immediately spots a role he desperately wants, along with an imposter modification that will definitely make the game more interesting. Already grinning at the possibilities, he selects them and leaves the game’s code.

**There Is One Werewolf and One Jester Among Us**

Everyone stands around the table, staring at each other in confusion over the different and rather worrying message. 

Grian is the first to speak up. “Wh-What is going on? What’s with the werewolf? And what the hell does jester mean?”

“The jester is the officially assigned third imposter,” replies Zedaph, grinning. “Their job is to act sus and get voted off. If they do, they automatically win.” 

Luckily, nobody questions how Zedaph knows this. He figures they put it down to his enthusiasm for the game. 

“And the imposter is actually a werewolf,” he adds. “They- Well, I guess we’ll see what they do, huh?”

“This is gonna end badly,” groans Skizzleman, “This is gonna end SO badly.”

“Let’s get on with our tasks,” Grian says. “There’s only one imposter, apparently, so they should have a harder time than usual.”

Zedaph watches his friends split up to do their tasks. He smiles; already, there seems to be more of an air of anticipation surrounding the group than at the start of the previous round. His plan to make things more exciting seems to be working already. He’s very happy that somehow, the randomised game has given him the role of jester right off the bat.

However, unbeknownst to Zedaph, the game sensed how much he wanted to be the jester and assigned him the role accordingly. He also doesn’t know that the game has a sense of humour in who it chose for the werewolf role.

Ren finds a new option alongside “kill” and “sabotage”. Surely an option with this long a cooldown can only be something spectacular. 

So he risks it and waits.

He kills Scar in communications and quickly leaves, passing Bdubs in shields on the way, before activating the werewolf option.

Immediately, his vision increases; he can see way further than he ever could. When he runs, he’s extremely fast, zooming at least three times as fast as he could before. Some unknown energy is fueling him. 

He makes it all the way around the right side of the ship and over to medbay without meeting anyone before his werewolf boost runs out. The cooldown is painfully long, but at least his kill cooldown is almost over. 

Spotting movement in medbay, he heads inside and finds Etho and Skizzleman inside. He senses an opportunity here. 

He kills Skizzleman as the latter is standing on the scanner.

Just as he expects, Etho reports. “I just saw Ren kill Skizz right in front of me.” 

“Hey, I was nowhere near you,” Ren retorts. “He’s self-reporting.”

“Can anyone vouch for your movements, Ren?” asks Grian.

“I saw him in shields not that long ago,” Bdubs says. “And he was heading up to nav. I highly doubt he could get all the way from there to medbay in that amount of time.”

Ren frowns, wondering how Bdubs had not discovered Scar’s body. Then he realises. His vision had increased, so the crewmates must have decreased. 

“Nice try, Etho,” Bdubs snickers. “Next time, pick someone who wasn’t halfway across the ship when you murder.”

Etho starts to protest but he makes eye contact with Ren and stops. 

“When the game doesn’t end, you’d better vote Ren out next,” he says. 

Bdubs shakes his head. “It literally COULDN’T be him. He was on the other side of the ship.”

Ren grins to himself as Etho is ejected. He has this round in the bag, he thinks.

But he has forgotten about the jester. 

Zedaph decides to follow Ren this round. He knows the powers of the werewolf almost as well as he knows Etho; the cyan crewmate wouldn’t make up such an obvious lie, especially when he’s already known as a self-reporter. 

And if the game’s sense of humour made a joker like Zedaph the jester, why wouldn’t it make Rendog the werewolf?

He follows Ren discreetly to electrical and watches him kill Tango inside. As Ren leaves the room again and heads for storage, Zedaph ducks inside electrical and waits for a few seconds before leaving.

As he hoped, he passes Grian just heading into storage, moments before their vision decreases again. Ren has activated werewolf mode. Zedaph can no longer see Grian; he can only hope that the red crewmate is heading for electrical. 

Sure enough, the body is reported a few seconds later. 

Before Grian can speak, Zedaph blurts out, “I saw Ren vent.”

“Wait, what?” Ren blinks at him. “I didn’t vent!”

“I saw you vent into shields while I was doing my task,” Zedaph says calmly. “I ran off towards the button but the body was reported before I could get there. You guys need to vote him off; Etho was right about him.” 

Ren doesn’t understand. He’s the only imposter; why is Zedaph accusing him of venting when he didn’t? 

“I didn’t vent into shields!” Ren protests. “I didn’t vent anywhere. I wasn’t even near shields; I was in reactor. I don’t understand why you-.”

He breaks off as Zedaph makes eye contact with him, and that’s when Ren realises what is happening. His friend is the jester and he’s in control of the situation completely. If the crewmates believe Zedaph and vote Ren out, he loses. If they don’t believe Zedaph and HE is voted out, he wins. 

Zedaph has created an unwinnable scenario for Ren. 

Now the question becomes… which ending is preferable?

After less than a second of thought, Ren decides to fight. If he’s going to lose either way, he’d rather Zedaph win through his own intelligence than the crewmates receive a victory they didn’t earn. 

“Ren?” Grian prompts.

“Zedaph is lying,” Ren says. “He’s trying to frame me. Where’s the body, Grian?”

“Electrical,” Grian replies slowly, eyes flickering from Zedaph to Ren. 

“Did you see anyone around?”

“Yeah…” Grian hesitates. “I saw Zedaph around the area.”

“There, see?” It pains Ren to do this, but he knows it’s the best option. “He knows you saw him around the spot where the body was found and he decided to cover his tracks by accusing me of venting.”

“Nuh uh!” The slightest hint of a grin is visible on Zedaph’s face. “Don’t try and throw me under the bus, Mr Werewolf. Just look at those furry little ears on his head!” 

“That’s a coincidence and you know it,” says Ren, internally sighing as he finally realises the irony. “Guys, you have to believe me; I’m not the imposter. Zedaph was literally seen around the area the body was discovered AND he’s trying to claim he saw me vent when I was nowhere near him. It’s obvious he’s the imposter.”

Zedaph shakes his head. “No, it’s Ren. I saw him vent.”

Grian, Bdubs, and Impulse exchange looks. 

Zedaph watches them make their minds. He’s not worried. If Tango was there, he would be; Tango knows him far too well. But Impulse, despite their long history, isn’t quite as familiar with the inner workings of Zedaph’s mind as Tango is. 

Finally, Grian says, “I think it’s Zedaph.”

“No!” Zedaph protests immediately. “I literally saw Ren vent! It’s not me.”

Impulse doesn’t seem quite as convinced. “I dunno, guys. Zed might be the jester, remember.”

“If he was the jester, surely he wouldn’t be fighting so hard to make us believe that Ren is the imposter,” Grian responds. “Plus, we already established Ren couldn’t have killed Skizzleman like Etho said he did.”

Zedaph snickers internally. He can almost hear Tango’s groan from the afterlife. 

The timer is running out. Everyone locks in their votes. 

Zedaph and Impulse have voted for Ren. Grian, Bdubs, and Ren have voted for Zedaph.

Frowning, Impulse turns to Zedaph. “Zed, I’m sorry.”

Zedaph pats his friend on the shoulder. “Don’t worry about it.”

He waits until they’ve put him in the airlock before he grins and says, “Thank you for your help, Ren. That was so much fun.”

Ren chuckles and shakes his head. “You deserve this, man. Well done.”

Grian and Bdubs exchange confused frowns but Impulse nods, turning away so he doesn’t have to see his friend being ejected. Their exchange can only mean one thing: a rare scenario has occurred. 

The imposter AND the crewmates have lost.


End file.
